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Search Engines
 Websites presented in alphabetical order Ask for Kids 
 "Designed to be a fun destination site focused on learning and 'edu-tainment,' Ask for Kids uses natural-language technology that allows kids to ask questions and perform web searches, such as 'When did Hawaii become a state?' ... in the same way they would ask a parent, friend or teacher. Our service combines human editorial judgment, age-appropriate feature content and filtering technology to enable kids to find both relevant and befitting information on the Web." http://www.askkids.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Jul 10, 2008 Association of Research Libraries: Google Book Search Library Project
Update about the copyright and intellectual property implications of the Google Book Search Library Project. "On October 28, 2008, after several years of legal wrangling, Google, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and the Authors Guild reached a settlement agreement concerning Google's scanning of copyrighted works." Includes links to the settlement agreement, material about security standards and public domain works, and related material. From the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). http://www.arl.org/pp/ppcopyright/google/index.shtml Topics: Intellectual Property, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Mar 26, 2009 BananaSlug
Website of an Internet search engine "designed to promote serendipitous surfing" by "throw[ing] in a random word from a category of your choice. This results in pages you probably overlooked. They all have your search term in them, but the added twist gives you something new every time." BananaSlug "uses the Google APIs, and as such, it's limited to 1000 queries a day." http://bananaslug.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Aug 28, 2008 Beaucoup Search Engines
Categorized and annotated (mostly) directory of "more than 2,500" searchable Web sites. Super Search is the Mamma.com meta search engine. http://www.beaucoup.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 23, 2002 Best Search Tools
Page with the search forms for the best Internet subject directories, search engines, and meta search engines. From the Infopeople Project. http://www.infopeople.org/search/tools.html Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated May 15, 2005 BoardReader
A search engine that searches multiple message boards simultaneously and displays information contained on the Web's forums and message boards. Sites with forums may request that they be included in the database (no fee). From engineers and students at the University of Michigan. http://boardreader.com/ Topics: Communications, Internet, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Dec 21, 2006 Clusty
An offshoot of the Internet search tool Vivísimo, "Clusty queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking. ... [This] search engine groups similar results together in clusters." Searches can be conducted for the whole Web, and for specific areas, such as blogs and news. Click on "details" to see what was searched. Also includes a FAQ and links to news stories about the site. http://clusty.com Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Aug 21, 2006 cRANKy
This search engine, fully launched in January 2007, bills itself as "the first age-relevant search engine," and is designed for those over 50. Only four results are displayed at a time, and users may rank sites (free registration required). From a company dedicated to creating media products aimed at the baby-boom generation born from 1946 through 1964. http://www.cranky.com Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools, Seniors Last updated Jan 22, 2007 DevX
Aimed at the software development community, this website presents information on software products, technologies, and vendors. Search their database of full-text articles from 20 computer publications, including InfoWorld, Information Week, and DBMS Magazine. Also has links to resources such as a product directory, Tech Tips, forums, Vendor of the Week, VARs, and more. A great place to begin the search for answers to technical computing problems. http://www.devx.com/ Topics: Computers, Computers, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Jul 21, 2005 DisInformation
"The most important daily news and information links carefully selected from the 'noise' that clutters up the web. The site also has a deep archive of opinion and editorial articles featuring original Disinformation interviews and reporting, plus community areas for users to find other users (a/k/a the personals), post comments and chat about the issues presented on the site and other topics of importance to our community." http://www.disinfo.com/ Topics: Internet, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Aug 7, 2008 ditto.com
An image search engine that retrieves images from the Web that have been screened. You can search for dolls and only get dolls. You have the option to search by keyword or browse their keyword or themes (categories) lists. Advanced search lets you search by file type and size, color depth, and date added. Was Arriba Vista. http://ditto.com/ Topics: Internet, Internet Guides & Search Tools, Web Design and Management Last updated Dec 29, 2005 Dogpile - meta search engine
There are several special things about this meta search engine. It includes simultaneous searches of subject directories, usenet news, mailing lists, and FTP collections, as well as Web pages. You can customize the search order AND it will automatically use some of the advanced search operators if the database searched has them. For example, NEAR! Now, about the name.... http://www.dogpile.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 19, 2002 Exalead
A search engine that features thumbnail images of the Web pages called up by the search and a list of related terms. Includes help for conducting searches, with tips on refining and widening a searches, searching for multimedia content, and keyboard shortcuts. From a French software company. http://www.exalead.com/search/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Feb 14, 2009 Excite Meta-Search
Internet search engine and Web directory. Additional features include the ability to search only for photos and to search only news sources. http://srch.excite.com/info.xcite/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated May 4, 2002 FindSounds.com
This site enables you to find a wide range of sounds on the Internet. Sounds are found in the popular AIFF, AU, and WAV file formats. Most sounds are quite short (from approximately two to six seconds long). Some categories are animals, birds, insects, musical instruments, nature and people, television and movies, and vehicle sounds. Or you can type in a word of your choice. There is a Copyright Policy section which states that the site "does not offer advice on fair use of these files." You can also download the Comparisonics Audio Player. http://www.findsounds.com/ Topics: Film, Movies, & Video, Internet, Internet Guides & Search Tools, Media, Media, Music Last updated Aug 29, 2004 The Flamenco Search Interface Project
A scholarly site about faceted search, which promises better organization of search results through offering categories, or facets, in result sets. Flamenco is designed to allow users "to move through large information spaces in a flexible manner without feeling lost." Includes publications, tutorials, downloadable software, and live, interactive demos. From the University of California, Berkeley, School of Information. http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/ Topics: Internet, Internet Guides & Search Tools, Librarianship Last updated Feb 14, 2009
This search engine's results ranking is primarily based on the number of other pages linking to a particular page. Excellent for simple searches. In addition to the largest database of Web pages, they have indexed more than 13 million PDF files. If your search has non-English results (in Italian, French, Spanish, German, or Portuguese) there will be a link to a version of that page machine-translated into English. http://www.google.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Sep 1, 2002 Google (Klingon Version)/Google tlhIngan Hol
A version of the Google search engine in Klingon, a language originally developed for use in Star Trek movies. http://www.google.com/intl/xx-klingon/ Topics: Humor, Internet Guides & Search Tools, Languages, Nonfiction by Genre, Sports, Recreation, & Entertainment Last updated Mar 23, 2004 Google 10th Birthday
Material related to the commemoration of the 10th anniversary in 2008 of this search engine. Features a timeline back to 1995, video clips and stories on how people use Google, and information about the 10^100 project, in which users have until October 20, 2008, to submit ideas for helping other people. "10^100 is another way of expressing the number 'googol,' a one followed by one hundred zeroes." From Google. http://www.google.com/tenthbirthday/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Oct 29, 2008 Google Book Search
A searchable archive of the full texts of books scanned from publishers and libraries. The site includes a discussion of what portions of materials are available for books that may still be under copyright protection: "you'll only see snippets of text directly around your search term. This snippet view is designed to help users ... make a decision about whether to go find a physical copy of the book." Formerly known as Google Print. http://books.google.com/ Topics: Industries, Internet Guides & Search Tools, Libraries & Archives by Type, Literature & Books, Printing, Publishing, and Book Arts Last updated Nov 17, 2005 Google Cheat Sheet
A quick reference guide to the most popular special operators for Google, including Boolean and adjacency operators, definitions, mathematical calculators, date search, site "info," and more. http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Nov 9, 2004 Google Groups
A "free online community and discussion group service that offers the Web's most comprehensive archive of Usenet postings (more than a billion messages)." http://groups.google.com/ Topics: Internet, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Aug 31, 2005 Google Image Search
"Google analyzes the text on the page adjacent to the image, the image caption and dozens of other factors to determine the image content." Results pages contain thumbnail images with name and size of image included, plus a link to the Web page on which the image is located. Filtering is available at moderate and strict levels. http://images.google.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Jun 26, 2007 Google Labs
This experimental site from the Google search engine "showcases a few of our favorite ideas that aren't quite ready for prime time." Play with keyboard shortcuts, telephone searching, a glossary (thesaurus), and more. http://labs.google.com/ Topics: Computers, Computers, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated May 23, 2002 Google Librarian Center: Newsletter Archive
A newsletter from Google for librarians, featuring "articles contributed by librarians and library supporters, links to library-related web sites, and updates on Google products and services that can help you in your work." The Jan. 19, 2006, issue includes an article about evaluating websites by LII's own Karen G. Schneider. Published irregularly, approximately every five weeks. Free email subscription. http://www.google.com/librariancenter/librarian_newsletter.html Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools, Librarianship Last updated Apr 30, 2006 Google Scholar
Beta version of this Internet search tool that "provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations." From Google. http://scholar.google.com Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Mar 8, 2006 Google Suggest
This is a test version of a Web searching system in which "as you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time." Type a query very slowly, one character at a time, and see a list of suggestions from Google. Includes a FAQ and a discussion forum. http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Feb 2, 2005 Google U.S. Government Search
Use this facet of Google to search for "U.S. government information, and for keeping up to date on government news. You can choose to search for content located on either U.S. federal, state and local government websites or the entire Web." http://www.google.com/unclesam Topics: Federal (U.S.) Government, Government, Government, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Dec 18, 2008 Google Video
Test version of a Web browser that "enables you to search a growing archive of televised content — everything from sports to dinosaur documentaries to news shows." Google Video searches "the closed captioning text of all the programs in our archive for relevant results." Includes a discussion forum. http://video.google.com Topics: Film, Movies, & Video, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Feb 2, 2005 Google Zeitgeist
Track "search patterns, trends, and surprises according to Google." Features top popular searches across the board as well as in categories such as celebrities, musicians, seasonal topics, and more. Includes an annual summary and timeline, and archived weekly and monthly search reports back to 2001. Also find search patterns for some specific countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Brazil, Australia, and Japan. http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Dec 30, 2004 Health on the Net Foundation (HON)
A medical search tool whose goal is to "promote the effective and reliable use of the new technologies for telemedicine in healthcare around the world." MedHunt searches for healthcare Web sites, hospitals, and support. HONselect "integrates Websites, journal articles, multimedia and news." Also included are discussion lists; information on aging, hepatitis, and vision; a glossary on allergies; and an eyecare FAQ. The Library contains papers from conferences and various other medical sources. A French version is available. http://www.hon.ch/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools, Senior Health Last updated Apr 23, 2002 Holiday Logos and Events: Google Style!
Galleries of Google logos commemorating holidays and events. Use the search tool to rummage for logos for occasions such as Alfred Hitchcock's birthday, Earth Day, and Chinese New Year. Archives back to 1999 include early logos customized for Thanksgiving and the Burning Man festival. http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html Topics: Holidays & Observances, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Feb 5, 2004 HotBot
Search engine and Web directory. Allows limiting searches by date, location, domain type, language, and media type. http://www.hotbot.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Dec 28, 2002 How Internet Search Engines Work
Describes how search engines find information, using software called robots (spiders) to gather words and notes and build an index. Discusses meta tags, ranking, and how an index may be built. Includes diagrams. From How Stuff Works. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/search-engine.htm Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Jan 8, 2007 Ixquick
Many Web searching databases are searched by this meta search engine. Translates your search into each search engine's syntax. Can perform natural language or complex Boolean searches. Supports phrases, wildcards, parentheses, pluses (+), minuses (-), capitalization, fields, and other modifiers such as NEAR. Also does news, MP3, and pictures searches. Also available in German, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish. http://ixquick.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Mar 25, 2006 Kid's Search Tools
This site puts the best children's search engines and directories on a single page. Find forms for KidsClick, Yahooligans, Education World, Awesome Library, Ask Jeeves for Kids, Berit's Best Sites, ThinkQuest Library, and more. http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Nov 26, 2004 Kosmix
Beta version of an Internet search engine that is designed to let "people search less, and discover more great stuff." Searchable by keywords in these categories: health, travel, video games, finance, and U.S. politics. Kosmix plans to add more categories. http://www.kosmix.com Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Jul 24, 2006 Learn the Net: An Internet Guide and Tutorial
An excellent site - in 5 languages: German, Spanish, French, Italian, and English. Covers the basics and has a great interactive search engine tutorial using AltaVista. http://www.learnthenet.com/english/index.html Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Sep 27, 2002 LinkPopularity.com
"Knowing who links to your site and increasing the number of quality links is an important part of any web site promotion effort. This free service allows you to query Google, Yahoo, and MSN and reports on link popularity" for whatever URL you want. http://www.linkpopularity.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Dec 18, 2008 Lycos
This search engine includes searchable people, yellow pages, images, audio, video, news, and more. http://www.lycos.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Oct 23, 2004 Mamma: Mother of All Search Engines
Searches up to 7 search engines at once, Web or Usenet. Results don't tell you which. Added value: directory of annotated, rated "Top 1 %" sites; lists of 2200+ magazines (by category) and 900+ newspapers (by location). Very, very fast. http://www.mamma.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 19, 2002 MetaCrawler
A multi-threaded Web Search Service. Sends your queries to several Web search engines and directories, including AltaVista and Excite (claims to search Google, but doesn't). Searches all of them at once. In addition to the basic any words , all words , and as a phrase options, MetaCrawler recognizes +, -, and ". http://www.metacrawler.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 19, 2002 NASA Image eXchange (NIX)
A "web-based search engine for simultaneously searching one or more of NASA's online image and photo collections. Searching is performed using keywords. ... NIX returns thumbnail sized images; textual descriptions; image numbers; and links to higher resolution images, more information, and the NASA Center that stores each image." Searches hundreds of thousands of NASA images. The Browse link will lead to NASA's choice of their best photos. The Options link will let you search within a collection. http://nix.nasa.gov/ Topics: Astronomy, Internet Guides & Search Tools, Photograph Collections, Technology, Transportation Last updated Jul 7, 2003 Official Search
A first stop if you're looking for an "official or authorized" Web site. Works best for very specific searches. http://officialsearch.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 23, 2002 Online Activities & Pursuits: Search Engine Users
This report finds that Internet users like and use search engines, but "are generally unsophisticated about why and how they use search engines. They are also strikingly unaware of how search engines operate and how they present their results." From Pew Internet & American Life, an initiative funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/146/report_display.asp Topics: Education, Internet Guides & Search Tools, Librarianship Last updated Sep 23, 2006 Pipl
This site bills itself as "the most comprehensive people search on the web" because it searches "the deep web," covering sites such as Amazon, Flickr, and MySpace. Search by first and last name, city, state, and country to obtain links to sites with information about individuals. http://www.pipl.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Jul 7, 2008 Scirus: For Scientific Information Only
Scirus is a search engine designed to focus on Internet resources containing research-oriented scientific content, such as university Web sites and author home pages. Citations to journal articles are also provided, although subscription is required for access to full text of journals. http://www.scirus.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Mar 21, 2003 Search Engine Colossus
An international directory of search engines, this site is searchable by country or category (Academic, Business, Christian, For Women, Youth, etc.). Each search engine listing provides a link to the site, a short description including what languages are used, and a point of origin. Search engines with green typefaces are edited by people, while those listed in white are assembled by spider-robots. http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 24, 2002 Search Engine Guide
Searchable guide to more than 3000 specialized indexes, subject directories, and search engines. Provides links to newsletters, headlines, USENET newsgroups, and other information about search engines. http://www.searchengineguide.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 24, 2002 Search Engine Watch Blog
The purpose of this blog is to highlight news tidbits and other information not covered in regular Search Engine Watch features. The blog's main contributor is librarian and Search Engine Watch news editor Gary Price, with additional contributions coming from other Search Engine Watch staff. Includes links to other search blogs. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/ Topics: Blogs & Podcasts by Subject, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Nov 20, 2004 Search Terms Glossary
A browsable list of terms associated with searching and search engines. Learn how to distinguish a false drop from a fuzzy match, explore Boolean operators, and much more. From search engine specialist Avi Rappoport. http://www.searchtools.com/info/glossary.html Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Aug 24, 2004 Search.com
Good for finding specialized search engines, more than 700 that find all kinds of information... from World Wide Web sites to phone numbers to movies to stock quotes, and all points between. You can search in customizable topic categories that include business, computing, entertainment, gaming, government, health, international, music, news (great for breaking news), people,reference, reviews, shopping, and travel. http://www.search.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools, Musical Genres Last updated Apr 19, 2002 SearchEngineWatch.com
Use this site to learn about Web searching and engines. Includes industry news; search engine submission tips for Webmasters, site owners, and marketers; Web searching tips; links to major search engines; ratings and reviews; tutorials; and the free newsletters SearchDay (daily) and Search Engine Report (monthly). http://searchenginewatch.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Mar 6, 2004 SearchEngineWatch.com: Search Links
A topical listing of annotated links to major search engines and search tools devoted to news, shopping, multimedia, country-specific search engines, children's sites, and more. The "Specialty Search Engines" section includes domain searching, government searching, legal search engines, the "invisible web," travel search engines, and many other specialty resources. Searchable. http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=links Topics: Internet, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Feb 17, 2007 Searchtools.com: Background Topics: Faceted Metadata Search and Browse
A brief but thorough explanation of faceted search, in which users can easily switch between searching and browsing "using their own terminology for search while recognizing the organization and vocabulary of the data." Includes a comparison with traditional parametric search engines, examples of faceted search, and key features of major faceted-search engines. From Searchtools.com, a website maintained by web search guru and consultant Avi Rappoport. http://www.searchtools.com/info/faceted-metadata.html Topics: Internet, Internet Guides & Search Tools, Librarianship, Web Design and Management Last updated Feb 21, 2006 Shakespeare Searched
This is a search engine "designed to provide quick access to passages from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets." Search results can be viewed by topic (such as love or death), work, and character. Includes options to view surrounding text of the passages and citations. The text of the plays is courtesy of Moby Lexical Tools. From the Clusty search software company. http://shakespeare.clusty.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools, Literary Movements and Periods Last updated Oct 12, 2006 Surfwax
This search engine claims it "helps you get the best grip on information" through "multiple seamless dimensions for information search and retrieval." http://www.surfwax.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Aug 2, 2002 Technorati
"Technorati is a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere--the world of weblogs." Drop a keyword or URL into the search box, browse popular topics, or create free custom notifications and RSS feeds to track items of interest (registration required for these features). Includes a linked list of the top ten search terms for the day. http://www.technorati.com Topics: Blogs & Podcasts, Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Jul 7, 2005 TinEye
"TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology. Given an image to search for, TinEye tells you where and how that image appears all over the web -- even if it has been modified." Search using an uploaded image or using an image URL. Includes a FAQ and page showing interesting search results (such as for the "Mona Lisa"). From a company that produces visual search software. http://tineye.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Sep 8, 2008 Vivísimo
This Internet search tool uses the Vivísimo Clustering Engine™ which "automatically organizes documents into an easy-to-browse and crisply labelled hierarchy." A search on "Ventura," for example, yields about 200 results displayed in a frame. A side bar sorts these into Ventura County , Jesse Ventura , Ace Ventura , etc. so the user can more easily select those most relevant to the information being sought. http://vivisimo.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 22, 2002 Web Wombat Australian Search Engine
This is "one of the world's first Internet search engines, established before AltaVista, Inktomi and Excite." The site claims more than 11.5 million Australian Web pages and almost 100 million global Web pages. http://www.webwombat.com.au/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 23, 2002 WebSerch - The Web Research Resource
This site has been "designed for use by librarians and information professionals, and is intended to assist in the evaluation and selection of information retrieval tools and information sources" on the Internet. The site contains information on evaluating search engines and Web resources; search engine specifications; search strategies and tips; and metadata. The site uses a Perl script that allows the user to view the metadata for each page. The author of WebSerch is a public librarian in Dublin, Ireland. http://www.clubi.ie/webserch/ Topics: Internet, Internet Guides & Search Tools, Web Design and Management Last updated Apr 23, 2002 Yahoo Images
Search for "photos and illustrations from all over the Web." Yahoo claims it provides access to over one billion pictures. Note: some images are intended for mature viewers. http://images.search.yahoo.com Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Apr 4, 2005 Yahoo! Search
This interface allows searches of the Web and of Yahoo content such as the Yahoo Directory and Yahoo News. Features tabs for searching specific content (such as images and videos), an advanced search page, and an option to save and share content with Yahoo's MyWeb. http://search.yahoo.com/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Aug 24, 2006 YubNub: A (Social) Command Line For the Web
This website offers "a command-line for the web." Use the commands the author created (either directly from the website or with the browser plug-ins) for search shortcuts to popular search engines, commerce directories, and other websites. Includes a blog and an option to create your own commands. From a software programmer. http://www.yubnub.org/ Topics: Internet Guides & Search Tools Last updated Dec 14, 2005 |
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| Copyright © 2009, Librarians' Internet Index, LII. All rights reserved. Primary financial support for LII (Librarians' Internet Index) from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian. LII is also supported by the IPL Consortium, and hosted by The iSchool at Drexel, College of Information Science and Technology. Other sources include California Digital Library. |