It's the online ordeal every web surfer dreads: You type a simple question or keyword into an Internet search engine only to get the response "about 52,839 pages found." Then it's time for the real searching-as you plow through the hits one by one.

As the amount of information on the Internet explodes, conventional search engines are struggling to keep up. But that's creating lots of opportunity for innovative Net-preneurs who have begun introducing a host of strategies to make searching the Web a whole lot more productive.