Search engine Scour aggregates results from Yahoo, Google, and MSN on one page, displays reviews and feedback from other Scour members about those results, and rewards you with points that you can trade in for a Visa gift card. Register for a free account at Scour, and use it each time you search the web. Accumulate enough Scour points and you can get a $25 Visa gift card.

Every member is awarded one point for every search, two for a vote and three for a comment with a maximum of 4 points a search. Once you aggregate at least 6,500 points you can cash them out for a $25 Visa gift card... it's more than you currently make from searching, right?

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Web site RateBeer contains an enormous user-rated database of beers to help you find your new favourite beer. Last weekend we highlighted Beer Suggest, a new site scouring the net to bring you a good beer, but several commenters pointed out RateBeer (and BeerAdvocate) as sites that have been around for much longer—which means they boast more reviews and a more robust database of brews. So while you're enjoying some nice late spring weather this weekend, check out RateBeer to find something tasty to relax with.

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You've got a long weekend ahead, and aside from your inevitable grill mastery, you need to find the perfect brew for your weekend feast. Beer-lovers web site Beer Suggest is here to fill that need, rounding up and reviewing over 4000 beers and over 1100 breweries to help you find the perfect beer for any occasion. The site has both wiki and review elements, so if you consider yourself a connoisseur you can update or review any beer on the site to provide your expert recommendations.

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Web search engine interface Katapulco is a one-stop search box to dozens of engines, from Google to Wikipedia to IMDB—and you choose which engine to search by entering a keyboard shortcut. For example, to Google Lifehacker from Katapulco, enter "Lifehacker" then "g" into the shortcut field. While Katapulco's premise—that keyboard shortcuts are faster—is spot-on, you can achieve this same result using the search box in Firefox (Ctrl+K to put your cursor there, Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down to switch engines) or my personal favourite, Firefox keyword bookmarks. If you're serious about searching with your keyboard, be sure to check out Google's experimental keyboard shortcut search results as well. While it's not something I'll use instead of those methods, Katapulco still has the right idea.

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US-Centric (for now!): Google Maps now makes it easy to check out real estate listings in a certain area: click on the "Show search options" link next to the Search Maps button, and choose "Real Estate" from the drop down. Your search will map homes for sale, with photos and prices. Search blog Google Operating System reports that the results come from real estate site feeds, not Google Base. You can also refine your search by price, number of bathrooms and bedrooms. Looks like Google Maps is giving Zillow a run for its money, though Zillow offers home valuations for property that's not necessarily for sale.

Firefox and Internet Explorer only: The Surf Canyon browser extension embeds extra search results at Google, Yahoo, and MSN. With Surf Canyon installed, search the web with your favourite engine as usual. A bull's-eye icon will appear next to results—click it to expand another level of links related to the single result. My test for a "lifehacker" Google search was promising: Surf Canyon included links to the official Lifehacker book, Upgrade Your Life, and a life hacks site search engine at Google Coop. Surf Canyon is a free download, and it's available as both a Firefox extension and IE add-on.

Instead of putting the onus on you to choose the best keyword, just-launched semantic search engine Powerset can find the answers you seek on the Wikipedia using natural language. Type things like "what is a life hack" or "paintings by Salvador Dali" and Powerset extracts those answers from Wikipedia and lays them out on an attractive page. CNET reports:

Powerset's natural language search technology is based on patents licensed exclusively from PARC and its own proprietary indexing. Powerset's engine has read 2.5 million Wikipedia pages and extracted "meaning" from the sentences, creating a navigation and semantic layer on top of the popular Web encyclopaedia.

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Yahoo's testing out a new kind of search page layout: when you search for broad-reaching terms (like Einstein, and happily, Lifehacker), you may arrive on their beta "Glue Page," which groups web page results, images, Wikipedia, news, blogs, and video clips into separate areas on the page. See it for yourself.

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Let's face facts—you're probably Googling yourself on a regular basis, whether for pure ego satisfaction or monitoring of your professional image online. New search aggregator Addict-O-Matic just happens to be great for seeing how you "look" online, as it focuses on returning results from the top social networking sites, Web 2.0 services, and blog-watching services. Of course, it's also a great tool for monitoring a topic or another person across the web's wide expanse, but once you add Addict-O-Matic to your Firefox search bar options or just as a bookmark, you know you'll be heading back to satisfy your online-mirror-checking fix.

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Web site Boolify makes advanced web searches easy through a simple drag-and-drop interface. Intended as an educational tool, Boolify teaches users how to create boolean searches in Google using operators like OR and NOT (-) to get very specific search results. Boolean searching isn't new by any means, but if you've never gotten the hang of it or you just prefer a more visual approach, Boolify is worth a look. If you're way past this, then our top 10 obscure Google search tricks may be more up your alley.

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