LIBRARY

Guide to World Wide Web Search Tools

This is a sampling of search tools available on the World Wide Web. Each search tool works differently from others, with its own set of features and advantages. Please read the help screens provided at each search tool site for full details. Most of these tools support " " for phrase searching, + for a required term, - to exclude a term. Most of the search engines will have a Simple Search and an Advanced or Power Search option.

HINT: To find out more about search engines (updates, comparisons, etc) visit SearchEngineWatch at http://www.searchenginewatch.com/

SUBJECT DIRECTORIES

Lists of selected subject categories. Good for general searches.

Infomine  http://infomine.ucr.edu

ipl2  (This is the result of a merger between the Internet Public Library and the Librarians' Internet Index)   http://www.ipl.org/

SEARCH ENGINES 

Huge comprehensive databases. Good for complex searches.                                                      

Ask   http://www.ask.com/

Answers.com   http://www.answers.com/

Bing  http://www.bing.com

Exalead  http://www.exalead.com/search/

Google  http://www.google.com/

Yahoo! Search  http://search.yahoo.com/
 

SPECIALIZED SEARCH ENGINES

Wolfram|Alpha  http://www.wolframalpha.com  is an excellent search engine to use when looking for fact-based data, particularly quantitative data.  In this sense,  it can be considered an "answer" engine.

META SEARCH ENGINES

Searches databases of other search tools. Good for an overview.

Dogpile     http://www.dogpile.com/ 

IxQuick   http://www.ixquick.com/

SurfWax   http://www.surfwax.com/

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