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Links for Research—Search Engines

Use the tools on this page when you want to find internet sites related to a specific topic, when you know enough about the topic to have good descriptive search terms to effectively target your search.

  • For Web directories, see the Web Directories page.
  • For descriptions and evaluations of the features of various directories and engines, see the Evaluations section below.

Note: the links below take you further down on this page.

Search engines - single databases
Search engines - multiple databasesEvaluations of Web directories and search engines

Search engines - single databases

AllTheWeb - http://www.alltheweb.com/
Search help - http://www.alltheweb.com/help/faqs/web_search
Advanced search help - http://www.alltheweb.com/help/faqs/advanced
 
Alta Vista - http://www.altavista.com/
Search help - http://www.altavista.com/sites/help/search/default
Advanced search help - http://www.altavista.com/sites/help/search/help_adv
 
Ask.com (formerley Ask Jeeves) - http://www.ask.com/
Search help - http://about.ask.com/en/docs/about/help_central.shtml
 
Google - http://www.google.com/
Search help - http://www.google.com/help/index.html
Advanced search help - http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html
 
MSN - http://search.msn.com
Yahoo! - http://www.yahoo.com/
Search help - http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/

Search engines - multiple databases

Dogpile - http://www.dogpile.com/
Dogpile will fetch results from several major search engines.
 
Ixquick - http://www.ixquick.com/
"Highlighted result" feature will show you where to find your search terms in each document.
 
Meta-Crawler - http://www.metacrawler.com/
MetaCrawler sends your queries to several web search engines, including About, Ask Jeeves, FindWhat, LookSmart, and Overture.
 
Surfwax - http://www.surfwax.com/
If you open a free account, you can choose which of hundreds of search engines to query and save your search results to use later.
 
Vivisimo - http://vivisimo.com/
Queries multiple search engines and uses document clustering technology to categorize results.

Evaluations of Web directories and search engines

NoodleQuest - http://www.noodletools.com/noodlequest/
Recommends search engines based on your research goals and familiarity with the Internet.
 
Search Engine Watch - http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/index.html
Search engine reviews, ratings, and tests.
 
Web Searching
part of the Internet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org/div/websearching/
Describes the features of Alta Vista, Ask Jeeves, Google, Hotbot, Ixquick, and Yahoo!

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A+ Research & Writing for high school and college students was created by Kathryn L. Schwartz