Internet Search Tools

Search Engines

In a search engine you enter words or phrases that describe your subject. The engine then returns a list of Web addresses that match your criteria to some degree. A wide variety of search engines is available, and each one works in a slightly different fashion. This information is intended as an introduction to some of the most useful and reliable search engines. For a more detailed look at how these tools work, please see Search Engine Watch (searchenginewatch.com/) or Tool Kit for the Expert Web Searcher (from the ALA Website).

• Alltheweb.com (FAST) (www.alltheweb.com)
  All The Web provides both comprehensive coverage of the Web and outstanding relevancy.
• AltaVista (www.altavista.com/)
  AltaVista covers about 100 million pages.
• Clusty (clusty.com/)
  Clusty pulls results from multiple sources and organizes them into heirarchical clusters.
• Excite (www.excite.com/)
  Excite contains approximately 55 million pages.
• EuroSeek (www.euroseek.com)
  EuroSeek has a European focus and searches in several languages.
• Google (www.google.com/)
  Google searches over 3 billion pages and returns relevant results by ranking Websites based on the link structure of the Internet.
• Grokker (www.grokker.com/)
  Results are organized into a visual map.
• Hotbot (www.hotbot.com/)
  Hotbot covers close to one billion pages.
• Lycos (www.lycos.com)
  Lycos provides access to 30+ million pages with good relevance ranking.
• Teoma (www.teoma.com)
  Teoma displays results based on a Website's "subject-specific popularity."

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Metasearch Engines

Unlike search engines, metasearch engines (or metacrawlers) do not crawl the Web themselves to build lists of Websites. Instead, they transmit your search simultaneously to several individual search engines and their databases of Web pages. The results are then blended together onto one page. For a more detailed look at how these tools work, please see Search Engine Watch (searchenginewatch.com/) or The Web Searcher's Toolkit (www.lita.org/committe/toptech/toolkit.htm). Below are some of the major metacrawlers.

• Dogpile (www.dogpile.com)
• Fazzle (http://www.fazzle.com/)
• Ixquick (www.ixquick.com)
• Mamma (www.mamma.com/)
• Metacrawler (www.metacrawler.com/)
• ProFusion (www.profusion.com)
• Search.com (www.search.com/)
• Vivisimo (http://vivisimo.com/)
• Web Taxi (www.webtaxi.com/)
• Webcrawler (www.webcrawler.com)
• ZapMeta (www.zapmeta.com)

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Subject Directories

Subject directories involve human intervention in selecting and organizing resources, so they cover fewer resources but provide more focus and guidance for the topics they cover. These resources offer a good starting point for searching broad topics.

• Academic Info (www.academicinfo.net/)
  Not as large as some of the other directories, but a respectable collection of academic research and educational resources.
• BUBL LINK (bubl.ac.uk/)
  Selected Internet resources covering all academic subject areas.
• Open Directory Project (dmoz.org/)
  Well-chosen resources, including annotations.
• WWW Virtual Library (vlib.org)
  Although it varies in quality and currency, this resource offers comprehensive results.
• Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com)
  The largest subject collection on the Internet, organized into a hierarchical subject tree; Websites are not rated or evaluated, though, so quality is uneven.

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Image Finders

• Alta Vista Image Search (www.altavista.com/image/default)
• Ditto (ditto.com/)
• Google Image Search (images.google.com)
• Image Finder (sunsite2.berkeley.edu:8088/ERF/servlet/ERFmain?cmd=searchResType&resTypeId=14)

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People Finders

• AnyWho (www.anywho.com/)
• InfoSpace White Pages (www.infospace.com/_1_2KO7TSN0PGFYHJ__mage/wp/index.htm)
• Internet Address Finder (www.iaf.net/)
• Switchboard (www.switchboard.com)
• Who Where (www.whowhere.lycos.com)
• World Telephone Directories (www.infobel.com/teldir/)
• Yahoo! People Search (people.yahoo.com/)

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Newsgroups and Discussion Lists

• CataList (www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html)
  Official catalog of LISTSERV lists.
• Google Groups (groups.google.com/)
  Search Google's discussion groups.
• Liszt (www.liszt.com/)
  Directory of email and discussion groups.
• Tile.net (tile.net/lists/)
  Discussion and information lists.

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RSS and Podcasts

• What is RSS?
  
• What are Podcasts?
  
• How do I use RSS?
  
• What do I need?
  
• How do I get the RSS feed into my reader?
  
• Where do I get RSS feeds?
  
• RSS and Podcast information (http://library.umkc.edu/Instruction/rss.htm)

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Invisible Web

Some types of Websites and links are excluded from most search engines by policy. Others are excluded because search engine spiders cannot gain access to them. Information that search engines cannot index is referred to as the "Invisible Web." The Invisible Web is estimated to be two to three or more times bigger than the visible Web. To find out more about the Invisible Web and how to access its hidden material, please see the UC Berkeley Library's informational Website (www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/InvisibleWeb.html) on the topic.

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Evaluating Websites

• UMKC Library Guide to Evaluating Resources on the World Wide Web
• Bibliography on Evaluation Web Information (www.lib.vt.edu/help/instruct/evaluate/evalbiblio.html)
  A list of resources relating to online information evaluation, compiled and maintained by the University Libraries of Virginia Tech.
• Evaluating Web Resources
  (http://www3.widener.edu/Academics/Libraries/Wolfgram_Memorial_Library/Evaluate_Web_Pages/659/) By the Wolfgram Memorial Library.
• Thinking Critically About World Wide Web Resources (www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/critical/)
  A brief but thorough page by Esther Grassian of the UCLA College Library.