Search Engines
Meta Search Engine |
Search Engine |
Image Search Engine |
Tools, Info Sites, etc. |
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Blog Search Engine |
Wiki Search Engine |
Podcast Search |
Game Site Search-in progress |
| Searches 7 engines; includes a Spanish Language Search Engine (BuscaMundo) | |
Alexa Internet |
Web Navigation Tool that offers related links at each page you visit |
| Claims to be a comprehensive Podcast directory | |
| A great Place to Start! Has many search engine links | |
| Entries divided by subject; particular emphasis on health-related subjects. | |
Alta Vista |
Extensive indexing; webbot understands frames; images, mp3s |
Amazing Picture Machine |
Images organized by key-word into directories |
| "Over 105,000 K-12 schools in the United States" | |
AOL.com Search |
AOL Search engine; also an e-mail finder (graphical finger) |
Ask Jeeves |
Meta-search engine that responds to plain English queries with faq's -- not url's |
| Clip Art Searcher on web places (Now owned by Google) | |
| Meta search engine -- mostly a large set of links by topic | |
| Biographical Information and sites | |
| Search by post, feed, or citations | |
| Blog, Podcast and Vlog Directory | |
| Used books portal/search engine; out-of-print, hard-to-find books | |
| Provides information regarding the general description of plants, various methods of cultivation, soil and temperature requirements, pruning, means of propagation (seeds, cuttings, division, etc.), and different varieties and hybrids. | |
Britannica |
Encyclopedia Britannica On-line (formerly eBLAST and eBIG)--includes on-line Webster's Dictionary |
| One of the major libraries in the world. | |
| Searches all on-line used book stores. Best source of used books anywhere; includes rare, antique and used booksellers that are not included on e-Bay. | |
| Selected Internet resources covering all academic subject areas. Maintained by the Centre for Digital Library Research at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland. | |
| en Espańol. Spanish Language Search Engine (part of 7 Search) | |
| searches 9 engines; also searches Usenet, stock symbols, others | |
| On-line World Atlas | |
| Offered by Seeq. A searchable encyclopedia of Celtic literature including the legends, mythology, tales, and history of this ancient culture. | |
| Council of European Social Science Data Archives "promotes the acquisition, archiving and distribution of electronic data for social science teaching and research in Europe. It encourages the exchange of data and technology and fosters the development of new organisations in sympathy with its aims." | |
| Current, in-depth data on every country in the world by everyone's favorite group of spooks. | |
Cnet Search |
Same as Search.com. A metasearch engine |
| The full Sixth (2001) Edition Online. | |
Companies On-line |
Now part of Lycos. Searches for companies with an on-line presence |
| "The Deep Web Directory." A good starting point for accessing the rich resources of the hidden Web. | |
| (Formerly Cambridge Scientific) Science abstracts--also includes good resources for Social Science | |
| (Formerly called C4:Total Search Technology) searches 16 engines; can save searches on-line; custom search parameters | |
| One of the oldest and most respected Blog search engines; covers 59,000 blogsites | |
Deja News |
(Now Google Groups) News Server search |
DeBriefing |
(Now ixquick.com) Bills itself as "the world's most powerful metasearch." Includes product search, international phone directory, and image search |
| Podcast Directory by categories | |
Direct Hit |
(Now Teoma) Keeps track of which pages are actually visited by searchers after being returned by the search and increases the rank of each return accordingly. Uses Ask Jeeves search technology. |
| Maintained by noted Web archivist Gary Price, of George Washington University's Gelman Library, the page provides annotated links to over 1000 searchable, interactive databases on the invisible web. | |
| Image Search Engine | |
Dogpile |
One of the oldest meta search engines--Web, Usenet, ftp, news; includes a graphical search to find locations by city & state or zip code; white pages phone directory for individuals; Joke of the Day |
| Dutch Electronic Subject Service. No longer maintained, but still functioning. | |
Edgar |
US Securities and Exchange Commission's search of company info |
| This online version of Microsoft's encyclopedia contains search engines and browsable indexes to help users learn and perform online research. Research tools include the encyclopedia, a dictionary, and an atlas. | |
| "The Living Encyclopedia" A list of links to various special subject listings with a heavy advertising content. | |
| "A comprehensive encyclopaedia being produced for the National Grid of Learning and a completely free resource for all students of British history." Currently contains over 1,000 entries. | |
| The Encyclopedia of Education Stats brings together data from several U.S. National Center for Education Statistics sources including: The Condition of Education, The Digest of Education Statistics, and Projections of Education Statistics. | |
| A resource for basic financial information; explains financial concepts in a straightforward manner. Offered by Ameritrade. | |
| Over 2000 psychology related links by the Department of Psychology at Jacksonville State University | |
Excite! |
One of the best for all-around content; uses CAN, MUST, and others |
| Search Engine Locator and specialty interfaces for super advanced searches of various other meta-search engines; Also try the Translation Wizard (in beta). | |
| Meta search engine with easy to use Boolean operators | |
Finder Seeker |
Finds Search Engines by topic |
Federal Ed Resources |
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence--U.S. Dept. of Education |
Fed Stats |
Searches Statistics gathered by the Federal Government |
| RSS Feed. Monitors 1 million feeds; search by keyword, updates every hour | |
| Offers (partly free) access to the full-text of more than 10 million articles published in magazines and journals dating from 1998. | |
| Plain English search | |
| paid site aimed at businesses. | |
| Stock photography and stock footage search engine for commercial sites | |
| Pages reviewed by "professionals" for relevance; small database | |
| Internet Radio and Podcast Search engine | |
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A suite of web-based tools to help librarians better manage subscriptions to electronic resources. |
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Google! |
The best known and largest Search Engine. uses '-' for NOT; semi-indexes dynamically created sites |
| Beta form of Blog Search engines by the King of Search engines. | |
| (Formerly Deja News) News Server search | |
| General Search; special search for on-line shopping and auctions sites | |
| "The official gateway to universities, colleges and research organizations in the UK." | |
Highway 61 |
meta-search engine--(searches 5 engines) |
Hoovers |
company information |
Hot Bot |
configurable searches; includes yellow pages (business) and white pages |
| Searches: Blogs, the Web, MySpace, News, Images and Phone Pics | |
InFind ™ |
searches 6 engines simultaneously and removes duplicate returns |
| Created and maintained by the University of California, provides access to, among other things, no fewer than 15,000 academically valuable sources. | |
| (formerly DeBriefing) Bills itself as "the world's most powerful metasearch." Includes product search, international phone directory, and image search | |
Go.com |
Excellent for business news (subsidiary of eBay) |
ISI |
(Institute for Scientific Information) cited reference searches |
Inspec |
Physics, Electronics engineering and Computing & control paid site |
| A non-profit organization run by James Fieser, Ph.D and Bradley Dowden, Ph.D. | |
| An experimental Wiki title search engine. | |
| meta-search engine includes engines for multimedia, kids, Linux and wireless (WAP) sites | |
| Multi-function search engine; includes lowest price search, images, and international phone directory | |
| searches up to 7 engines sequentially--best for subject specific sites; also BigStore for product searches | |
Lexis Nexis |
paid site--aimed toward "professional" users, but includes a free, limited return search (still very useful) |
Librarian's Yellow Pages |
Not just for Librarians, but focuses on sources for books, audio, etc. |
| World's Largest Library | |
| The Internet archive has been archiving webpages and other material since1996. The Wayback machine allows you to enter an URL and a date and will retrieve the webpage at that URL as it appeared on--or close to--that date. Use to find web pages at now dead links. | |
Invisible Web Catalog |
Searchable databases that are not searchable through normal webbot activity. (Lycos and Intelliseek) |
| "The non-anonymous website for north Africa and the Middle East . . . mainly for a western audience" | |
LookSmart |
meta search with directories |
Lycos |
Games, chat, "popular" topics--For MPG3 files Most advanced search features (supports the greatest number of boolean operators) Lycos Invisible Web Search (Searchable Databases) |
| features Intelligent Concept Extraction (ICE) to find relationships between words and ideas--it has a built-in thesaurus and will return websites with related terminology. Boolean operators in capital letters | |
| Tracks recent free magazine articles available online; annotated with full-text links | |
Mamma |
"the mother of all search engines"--searches 7 simultaneously; power search |
| Find Maps On-line; accurate interactive maps and driving directions | |
| On-line Dictionary & Thesaurus; Word of the Day, Word Game of the Day | |
Metacrawler |
meta search engine--(Go2Net) searches 9 engines and ranks the results |
Metagopher |
meta engine--searches 8 engines; customizable |
| meta search engine--not reliable | |
| Wiki Search by keyword. | |
| Manchester Information & Associated Services by | |
| MIT's on-line Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences organizes the cross-disciplinary topics of cognitive and brain sciences under the six domains of computational intelligence; culture, cognition, and evolution; linguistics and language; neuroscience; philosophy; and psychology. | |
MMS |
paid--Chemical patents |
| searches 7 engines | |
MSN Web Search |
LookSmart and Alta Vista-based search engine (Microsoft) |
| Find a location by address, place name, country, zip code includes road map, physical features, weather, population density and other specialty maps | |
| Accesses 7 search engines from one site | |
| "The Internet list for new journals and newsletters available on the Internet" | |
| RSS Feed search; one of the largest aggregators covering 1000's of sites | |
Northern Light |
#1 for investments and market research; webbot understands frames |
| Penn State University site--finds texts of books available on-line | |
Online Media Directory |
Newspapers and other media online |
| A dynamically created podcast directory to which anyone can add their own podcasts--registration required. Sporadic access. | |
| The World Mountain Encyclopedia answers your highest peak questions (including the high point of each state in the U.S.). Includes an index of geographic regions and mountain ranges and another of individual peaks and volcanoes. Visual indexing is offered through clickable relief maps. | |
| Internet Radio Search; includes podcast search | |
| PhotoBlog Search engine | |
| Image Search Engine includes a most popular searches of the week feature | |
| Podcast Portal and Directory | |
| Directory of only "good quality " podcasts | |
| Directory and search engine for podcasts | |
| Podcast Portal and Directory--sorted categories | |
Primary Source Media |
Primary Source Media--rare books, government documents, authors, more (Paid) |
| Platonic Realms Interactive Mathematics Encyclopedia by the Math Academy On-line. | |
ProFusion |
meta engine--up to 9 vertical search engines searched at a time; Boolean allowed |
| Searches RSS feeds. Claims to search 8 million Blogs and 500,000 newsgroups. Free subscription required to run inquiries. | |
QPAT |
patent searches--subscriber site (1 day free search) |
SavvySearch |
Search multiple (up to 100) search engines by category; in over 20 languages; allows you save searches on-line |
| Same as CNet Search. A metasearch engine | |
Search EngineShowdown |
Keeps competitive statistics on search engine results (ranking) |
Search Engine Watch |
Tries to keep up-to-date on search engines on the web |
Search Spaniel |
meta search that uses Dogpile, but opens a separate window for each engine's results -- messy. |
| "The Web starts here" from Grassroots.org | |
| podcast and video search engine | |
SNAP |
Full-featured; directories; configurable (sponsored by CNET & NBC) |
| German site (in English) meta-search for for software (free, shareware, commercial) | |
| SOSIG (Social Sciences Information Gateway), "Best of the Web for Social Science" | |
| Offered by the The Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford University. | |
Starting Point |
meta-search engine with links to other search engines; allows searches within subject categories on other engines -- My Favorite |
Stop Stock |
Search for stock photographs from 10 on-line companies |
| "The remote control of the web;" broadband audio and video web content | |
SuperSeekWebSearch |
searches 12 engines--opens separate windows for each--messy. |
| "The world's largest online encyclopedia of over 2500 graphic symbols" | |
| Open directory of RSS and ATOM feeds; includes a podcast directory | |
| "More than 20,000 IT terms" A CDW/TechWeb offering. | |
| Blog Search Engine claiming to track 45 million sites and 2.6+ billion links. | |
| (formerly Direct Hit) Keeps track of which pages are actually visited by searchers after being returned by the search and increases the rank of each return accordingly. Uses Ask Jeeves search technology. | |
| Around the World Live Weather | |
UltraSeek Search |
Features a "customizable, automated directory engine" (formerly Inktomi) |
| Web Directory that categorizes websites by experts | |
U.S. Census Abstracts |
Statistical Abstract of the United States from the census |
U.S. Gov. Search |
(for NTIS) (on Northern Lights) Government and military info |
Verio Metasearch |
searches 8 engines; retrieves 10 hits from each; weights the engines and displays the results in table format |
WebCrawler |
(Excite! subsidiary) |
| the first human-assisted search engine to produce relevant, personalized results | |
| "The only online dictionary and search engine you need for computer and Internet technology definitions." | |
Webseek |
a searchable catalog of over 650,000 images |
| Wiki Search page--browse wikis by category or language. | |
| Best known Wiki-based Dictionary on the Net: A Free, open content encyclopedia project with over 100,000 articles. | |
| The Usenet newsgroup news.answers is a repository for periodic informational postings (Frequently Asked Questions postings, or FAQs) from newsgroups. | |
| Claims to list all known public wiki's |
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| "The entries are sorted by the first letter of the virus name, plus a page for virus names which are numerical (#). It is important to note that many viruses have several aliases. If you are looking for information on a virus, it may be in here under a different name." | |
| The WWW Virtual Library; also the Virtual Library of Published Subject Indicators which are a “URI-based method of identifying subjects of discourse … of particular interest to publishers and users of ontologies, taxonomies, classifications, thesauri, registries, catalogues, and directories, and for applications that capture, collate or aggregate information and knowledge.” | |
Yahoo |
One of the best known; Originally used humans to categorize sites. |
| Yahoo for Kids |
Boolean operators:
Note: Some search engines will accept only ALL CAPS, others will accept mixed-case words.
- |
exclude the following word (similar to NOT) supported by all but Google |
+ |
include the following word (similar to AND) supported by all but Google |
" " |
find exact string match (i.e. phrases that appear exactly as between the quotes) supported by all but Google |
* |
wildcard (i.e. any beginning or any end: ex. theor* = theory, theorem, theoretical, etc) |
AND |
Both words or phrases must appear in order to be returned |
AND NOT |
same as NOT--really the technically correct way of stating NOT; some engines will not accept NOT, so try this instead. |
CAN |
May contain this word, but not necessarily in order to be of use |
MUST |
Must contain this word to be returned |
NEAR |
the second word must be found within a given number of words of the first word in order to be returned. The number is different for different engines. PRO only |
NOT |
do not return an entry which contains the following word -- even if the first word is found (see AND NOT) |
NOR |
Not really used -- means if either the preceding or the following word appears, do not return this entry |
OR |
either of two words or phrases may appear in order to be returned |
For more information on Boolean searches see Boolean Searching on the
Internet (SUNY Albany).
See also: Finding
Information on the Internet: A Tutorial (UC Berkley)
Also helpful may be: A Glossary of
Search Engine Terms
Greg Notess' User's Guide to Web Searching
(Montana State University)
Search Engine Standards Project: Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch has started a project to encourage the standardization of commands across all search engines. Check out his site to keep abreast of his progress.
In April 1998, science Magazine carried an article by S. R. Lawrence & C. L. Giles titled, "Searching the World Wide Web" (Science 280: April 1998: pp. 98-100). According to Lawrence and Giles, the best search engine (HotBot) covered only 34 percent of the estimated 320 million pages on the Internet and the worst (Lycos) only 3 percent. Most search engine webbots do not "understand" frames pages and thus cannot index them. In addition, webbots cannot index dynamically created pages -- which are becoming more common. At this time, no search engines support XML -- which will likely become a standard in the future and in which some pages are written today.
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