1. AllTheWeb.com (FAST Search) AllTheWeb.com (also known as FAST Search) consistently has one of the largest indexes of the web.
  2. Alta Vista - AltaVista is one of the oldest crawler-based search engines on the web. It has a large index of web pages and a wide range of power searching commands. It also offers news search, shopping search and multimedia search.
  3. Ask Jeeves - Ask Jeeves is a human-powered search service that aims to direct you to the exact page that answers your question.
  4. Google - Google is a top choice for web searchers. It offers the largest collection of web pages of any crawler-based search engine. Google makes heavy use of link analysis as a primary way to rank these pages
  5. HotBot - Originator of the easy way to search with a powerful search engine. Boolean searches are done with entry boxes which help novice users.
  6. Lycos -Lycos started out as a search engine, depending on listings that came from spidering the web but it has become a cross between a directory and search engine with some unique features.
  7. Open Directory - The Open Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web.
  8. Yahoo - Winner of search engine watches tool of the year in 2004,Yahoo is the web's most popular search service and has a well-deserved reputation for helping people find information easily. The secret to Yahoo's success is human beings. Improved vertical searches make the difference.
  9. MSN Search - Microsoft's MSN Search service is a LookSmart-powered directory of web sites, with secondary results that come from Inktomi. Direct Hit data is also made available.
  10. Exalead - Stylishly minimalist page but it hids a excellent advanced search set with some new features not seen before such as "proferably contain and proximity searching.
  11. LookSmart - LookSmart is a human-compiled directory of web sites.
  12. AOL Search - AOL Search allows its members to search across the web and AOL's own content from one place. The "external" version, listed above, does not list AOL content.
  13. Netscape Search -Netscape Search's results come primarily from the Open Directory and Netscape's own "Smart Browsing" database, which does an excellent job of listing "official" web sites.
  14. Teoma - The new kids on the block and the one to watch. It offers intelligent grouping of search results into topic groups that focus on exactly what you are looking for.
  15. Wisenut - Another new entry - this one is big fast and flexible with 1.5 billion pages in less than a year which is second only to Google.
  16. A9-from Amazon - who else is going to join the search landscape?

Related Links

Effective Search Engines for Teachers

Insearch of the Perfect Search Engine

What to do before you search

Four NETS for better searching

The Boolean Machine

The Search Engine Showdown

Good enough search table

One Page of Search tools

Specialized search engines

AmeriStat - Research that needs statistics about the US population will find this to be gold mine.

Artcyclopedia - An index of hundreds of museum sites and image archives. Visitors can search for where the works of over 5,500 different artists can be viewed.

Ask Magpie - Directory that lists magazines from all over the world.

BookSearchEngine - Search

for web sites related to books and authors

FlightSearch - Directory covering various topics relating to aviation.

Redline-Search.com - Directory of automotive web sites.

SportSearch - Directory of sports web sites.

When.com - An events directory and personal calendar web site.

Meta Search Tools

  1. Vivisimo - Enter a search term, and Vivismo will not only pull back matching responses from major search engines but also automatically organize the pages into categories. Slick and easy to use.
  2. Kartoo - if you like seeing your web pages visually, this meta searcher is for you.
  3. ProFusion - Brings back listings from several major search engines as well as "Invisible Web" resources.
  4. Dogpile - The most complex of the metasearch tools.
  5. Researchville - excellent collection of search tools, give you good results and allows you to target reference sites, dictionaries, encyclopedias and discussion forums.
  6. Proteus - is very easy to use and offers all kinds of help to show you how to maximize your results.
  7. MetaCrawler - choice of 11 search tools with ability to combines the results into one master list with dupes removed.
  8. Clusty - clustering engine that offers a new way to look at search results
  9. Jux2 - It provides a clean, simple way to see all the results from the most important major search engines.

Up to the Minute News Tools

CNN Student News - news for students and resources for teachers.

1st Headlines

Google News Site - robotically collected links to current news

Moreover - brings together a massive index to news stories posted elsewhere.

TotalNews - features channels of news allowing you to search by keyword or topic.

NewsTrawler - good international new search tool.

Yahoo News - gathers most breaking news into a single page for users

Which search engine is your favorite?

Introduction

Use these search tasks to help determine your favorite search engine. (Your favorite search engine is the one you understand and can use best to find the results you want.) Compare the assigned search engine to your favorite)

The Task

Read the advanced help documentation of several search engines. Determine your favorite search engine by comparing the results of several search engines. (rating (low1-10high)

Spend the same time with each search engine (above) to experiment with its advanced search features. (rating (low1-10high)

 

How would you rate the online help for each of the search tools?(rating (low1-10high)

 

The next few exercises will help you to determine which is 'your favorite search engine'.

 

Evaluate the following search engines to find out which one is the best to answer your question:

1. Who discovered Jupiter's moons?

 

(You are not allowed to use the term Galileo in your search!)

 

2. You have to do a historical article about the face on Mars.

 

Find 5 different website domains of nasa.gov where the face on Mars is discussed. All these articles by NASA must have been written in 1995.

 

Also find 5 different website domains of nasa.gov where the face on Mars is discussed. All these articles by NASA must have been written in 2002.

 

Your students want to do WebQuests about the face on Mars. Determine with which search engine you can find the most WebQuests about the face on Mars. Spend the same amount of time searching using each engine.

To save time, only investigate the first 20 results in each search engine. Click each search result to find out if it is really a WebQuest or if these 20 results all point to the same 3-5 WebQuests about the face on Mars.

 

3. Compare the advanced features of the following search engines to determine which search engine is the best to do the following:

 

Find more about information about Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons. None of your first 20 search results should contain anything about the Galileo spacecraft or the Galileo probe to Jupiter.

End ranking - your evalution of the test search engine and your favorite?