Search Engines
Follow the links to various WWW search engines.
These tools allow you to find a wide variety of information by topic or content.
- About.
Returns three sets of results, one from the About directory, one from the Web
at large and one from About partner sites. www.about.com.
- AltaVista.
One of the largest databases and most efficient search engines.
www.altavista.com.
- Delaware Query Server.
Metasearch tool that covers all major search engines and lets user choose
which to query. queryserver.dataware.com/general.htm.
- Direct Hit.
Excels at homepage targeting because it rates Web sites by popularity.
www.directhit.com.
- Direct Search.
Topic-specific databases with access to information not usually available from
most commercial search engines including technical papers, company
information, census data, government documents, reference works, library
catalogs and so forth.
gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/direct.htm
- Excite.
Easy to use, headings and links are well organized. Usenet news and classified
ads in addition to the Web. www.excite.com.
- FAST Search.
Very sophisticated database but very uncluttered and easy to use.
www.alltheweb.com.
- FirstGov.
The U.S. governments search engine for its vast network of sites.
www.firstgov.gov.
- Google. Ranked
in 2000 by PC Magazine as one of the two highest rated search engines on the Web. Focuses
solely on searching with a fast and refreshingly spare interface. Plus
Google Uncle Sam, a source of U.S. government information.
www.google.com.
- HotBot.
Large database used for complex, carefully targeted searches. www.hotbot.com.
- Infozoid.
A fast and flexible metasearch engine that queries almost every major engine
except Northern Light. www.infozoid.com.
- Lycos.
Includes the four most popular Web sites listed before the other hits.
www.lycos.com.
- MetaCrawler. A search tool
that combines and summarizes results from seven major engines. www.metacrawler.com.
- MSN. Provides
extensive methods for refining searches. www.msn.com.
- NBCi. Very
effective search system
(formerly SNAP.com). www.nbci.com.
- Northern Light. Ranked by PC Magazine
as the other of the two highest rated search engines in 2000. Includes a
database of 1800 journals, reviews, books, magazines and news wires as well as
a major source of U.S. government documents on the Web.
www.northernlight.com.
- Oingo.
Strength is its ability to zero in exactly for what the user is seeking.
www.oingo.com.
- Open Directory Project.
Not truly a search engine, it is an organized listing of sites assembled by
editors around the world. www.dmoz.org.
- Raging Search.
Basic Web searching without news feeds and shopping services.
www.raging.com.
- WebCrawler.
Another metasearch tool that combines results from several search
engines. www.webcrawler.com.
- Yahoo. One of the most popular
search engines,. it is excellent for basic searches but has difficulty with
complex queries. www.yahoo.com.