Concept Categorizing Search Engines

A concept categorizing search engine organizes results into topical categories or concepts. These concepts are derived from the contents of your search results. This arrangement may be thought of as a horizontal layout of results, in contrast to a single, vertical list of results that you find on such search engines as Google. Most concept processing engines also offer a vertical list of results. The concept categories are an added bonus.
When you encounter concept categories, you can first review them to determine if the results are relevant to your search. If not, you can try another search. Or perhaps your results are fine, but the categories themselves could be better! If the categories look useful, you can select the ones of interest and examine their contents. Concept categories can also help you learn about your topic.
There aren't as many concept categorizing search engines as there once were. This is a shame, because this type of search engine can be very helpful to your research.

When to use a concept categorizing search engine

• When your search is a general one and you want to learn about the component concepts of your topic
• When you know very little about your topic and want help in identifying its scope and content
• When your topic is obscure
• When you are having trouble finding what you want when scanning a single list of search results

Examples of a concept categorizing search engine

Here is an example of concepts retrieved from a Quintura search on "global warming" on Quintura. The concepts are laid out in a tag cloud, very popular on the Web these days.