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Search Guidelines
Tips for Efficient Internet Searches
Evaluating Internet Resources
The Good,
the Bad, and the Ugly: Evaluation Criteria
Search
Engines
Search engines rely on automated programs
called "spiders" to scan and record the contents of web
pages.
Alta Vista — this
engine also translates foreign language documents into English
Fast — "all the web, all
the time"
Google — promises the
Web's most relevant results
RefDesk — gateway to
all things factual: dictionaries, almanacs, white pages, and
more
Search Engine Guide — allows you to search for engines
dedicated to a particular topic
Search Engine Watch — ratings and descriptions of all the
major search engines
Search Bug — catalogs
search sites of all types and provides forms to run queries on
other sites
Web
Directories
Web directories
collect sites with spiders. Human directory editors sort through
the sites and organize them by topic.
Ask Jeeves — search the Web
in plain English
Excite
LookSmart
Lycos
Yahoo
Metasearch
Tools
Metasearch tools search
other search engines and web directories.
Dogpile — master search tool which scans other search
engines
HotBot
Metacrawler — this tool also scans other search
engines
People
Finders
Bigfoot
Google People Search — displays phone numbers and
addresses
WhoWhere —
includes links to international phone directories
Switchboard —
provides map of address
Sights and
Sounds
ADAM
— fine art, design, and architecture images
AltaVista
Audio Search
AltaVista
Image Search
AltaVista
Video Search
Ditto — image-oriented search tool for tracking down
graphics
Image Finder
— includes databases from Smithsonian and NASA
Lycos Multimedia
Search
Lycos Music — combines music downloads with links to
artists' web sites
News
Lycos News —
stories from within the past week
Moreover — covers
stories only for one or two days
Northern Light —
automatically organizes your search into custom subject folders
Public
Sector
FedWorld
— provides lists of federal government databases including
Supreme Court and IRS
FirstGov — search every
word of every U.S. government document (over 30 million pages!)
Miscellaneous Search
Tools
AskMe — a community of real people with information and
advice
dmoz — the Web's top card catalog
Go Network
InvisibleWeb — catalogs 10,000 special-interest search
sites