Search the Internet
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Search Engines Web Directories Metasearch Tools People Finders
Sights & Sounds News Public Sector Miscellaneous Tools

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


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