Comparison and Evaluation on search effectiveness

Meta Engine www.metacrawler.com will search for the word "and" if I type "AIDS" and development. It does not seem to respond to the " " used. Meta engine may be user-friendly and also helpful, however, does not seem to accept this searching technique.

Subject Directory http://www.yahoo.com/ results in lesser number of hits(2016) when the similar phrase was searched on, but they are more relevant as compared to the 132000000 hits returned when yahoo Search Directory is used.

Of the all above, google appeared to be high in popularity and views.

I find that Yahoo ( Directory category) most suitable and effective for me as the sites there are of higher relevance and are related. Although the search results are not of a big number, I would most probably not refer to all of the results and even the first page itself gives me what I need.