INTERNET     SEARCH     ZONE

Beginners   InterNet   Search   Tools

Indexes
for
Beginners

• Google: Currently they search 1.3 billion web pages.
• Yahoo: is the most "friendly" and popular index on the InterNet, where "you'll find hundreds of thousands of web sites, categorized into 14 top-level categories, from Arts and Humanities to Society and Culture."

Tools for
Kids

• ithaki: is a meta tool that "searches: Dmoz Kids, Yahooligans, FactMonster, ArtKidsRule, AolKids, AppuKids, and Discovery School."
• Search Engines for Kids: Search tools designed for kids.
• Yahooligans: was designed just for kids.

Text Searching
for
Beginners

• Ask Jeeves: is "the first natural language search service--with a massive Knowledgebase of 6 million answers to the most popular questions asked online.... allowing anyone to ask a question in plain, simple English without having to use keywords or Boolean search strings."
• Encyclopedia.Com: contains more than 14,000 articles from the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia.   The free reports are brief, about one paragraph, but useful for checking facts, and they provide 170,000 links to related WWW sites.
• Web Search: has a clean interface, and is highly rated.

Intermediate   InterNet   Search   Tools

Intermediate
Indexes

• Alta Vista Categories: provides subjects into 14 categories.
• BUBL: Information Service: Search using either the: Dewey,   Subject,  or  Expanded Subject lists to access more than 1300 subject terms, with at least five relevant resources for each subject.
• Digital Librarian: has managed to classify worthy sites on the InterNet into 93 categories.
• LookSmart: uses 10 major (60+ minor) categories.
• Lycos: uses 14 major categories. Also contains brief news.
• Re: QUEST dot net: "is an online library of internet and reference resources offering links" in 19 top level categories.

InterNet
Meta
Search
Tools

• 37.com: Type once, get results from up to 37 search engines!
• byteSearch: "requests information from each major search engine...stores the results, formats them, removes duplicates, and prints them out in an easily managable form." Fast.
• Debriefing: is easy to use, eliminates duplicates, and is powered by ixquick.
• Dogpile: You can also search Usenet, or for weather, stock, and business news.
• HuskySearch: at the University of Washington has Java and three speed search options.
• ithaki: "the most powerful and innovative metasearch engine."
• Ixquick: "Ixquick features a nifty star rating system for reporting results...the more likely it appears in the top ten list of major search engines.
• Mamma: is a "smart" meta search engine that will analyze your request, format the words for each source, organizes the results into a uniform format, and then presents them by relevance and source.
• MetaCrawler: Go2Net acquired MetaCrawler in 1997.   Business oriented.
• ProFusion: Provides user options and artificial intelligence technology to extracts information before prioritizing the results eliminating duplicates.
• Proteus: provides guide boxes for delimiting searching by phrase or URL, etc. for 8 popular engines.
• Search.com was Savvy Search, now owned by CNET.
• SearchHound: offers default child safe searches and optional parallel searching using 24 other search engines providing results in the five categories of Websites | Software | Stocks | People | News.
• Seek123: provides meta search and a wide variety of links.
• TheBigHub: formerly iSleuth, permits searching multiple engines, Web directories and news databases simultaneously.

Intermediate
Text
Searching

• Direct Hit: seeks to build the world's most accurate search engine.
• Encyclopedia Britannica: search "the world's best Web sites, plus related books, selections from leading magazines. Pop up advertisments."
• Fast: "offers a powerful platform of search and filter technologies, including the world's most comprehensive and freshest search engine.
• xrefer: the web's first reference engine, using unique cross-referencing.

Advanced   InterNet   Search   Tools

InterNet
Indexes

• AEIWI: A "list of the 100 most used keywords" with the number of pages that contain the keyword.
• Documents Center: is the University of Michigan's guide to a wide variety of topics and documents.
• Internets: has "assembled the largest filtered collection of useful search engines and newswires anywhere on the World Wide Web."
• Librarians' Index to the InterNet: is the University of California at Berkeley's thorough image of the InterNet.  This subject list is perhaps the most comprehensive on the InterNet.
• My Virtual Reference Desk: "has three goals: (1) fast access, (2) intuitive and easy navigation and (3) comprehensive content, rationally indexed.
• Tile.Net: is the comprehensive index site for discussion lists, ftp sites, Usenet newsgroups, venders, etc. Provides for text search too.
• WWW Virtual Library: "The VL is the oldest catalog of the web, started by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the web itself..."

InterNet
Search
Clusters

• AllSearchEngines.com groups search engines into 28 categories.
• AskJack slightly dated, but offers a variety of links to news, search engines, etc.
• Beaucoup: links to approximately 800 categorized search tools, such as media, geographically specific, software, literature, education, music, arts, etc.
• Explore the InterNet: A nice search engine list from Amdahl.
• FinderSeeker: permits searching for search engines, by category and country.  Fast.
• Metabrowsers: provide new ways to view the Web using one window (e.g., Quickbrowse).
• Pioneer: an annotated list of the most important search tools.
• SearchEzee: Searches over 200 search engines, meta search engines, directories and topical sites in an easy to use interface.
• Search Engines Worldwide: literally opens the world of search to anyone.
• webtaxi.com: is a "breakthrough navigation service designed to help Internet users conveniently search the World Wide Web."

InterNet
Text
Searching

• Alta Vista: provides a powerful search through its entire "Web index -- approximately 200 Gigabytes of data -- in less than a second."   But you need to understand how to use this tool.
• Deep Web provides access to databases: beta Profusion,  Complete Planet,  Direct Search,  InvisibleWeb,  Lycos.
• HotBot: "indexes every word, link, and media file on more than 110 million Web documents and refreshes its entire database of documents every three to four weeks."
• Northern Light: presents the 25 strongest hits using your search term(s).  What makes Northern Light different is that, much like Metafind and Inference Find, it also clusters the results of its hits into "Custom Search Folders."
• Teoma provides three kinds of searches including "expert's links."

Evaluated   InterNet   Sites

Evaluated
InterNet
Sites

• Argus Clearinghouse: evaluates 13 categories of sites according to five criteria, and then provides one to five check marks for each site it lists.
• Awesome Library "provides only resources that have been reviewed and found to be of high quality."
• Scout Report Signpost: is compiled by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is funded by the National Science Foundation.   Signpost contains more than 11,500 reports catalogued using the Library of Congress classification.
• World's Best Websites: Gives awards to "exemplary sites that redefine standards of website excellence.  The criteria employed are among the most rigorous on the Internet."

Guides   to   InterNet   Sites

Human
Guides

• About.com has approximately 700 guides and 28 top level categories.   Was originally called the Mining Company which led the revolution to volunteer guides.
• Allexperts.com: "features thousands of volunteers in medicine, arts, TV, sports, music, travel, humanities, love, education, business, religion, etc.," where you can ask a question.
• 4anything.com: uses editors and advertising to construct 14 category sites, such as 4autoinsurance.com, 4baseball.com, and more than 550 city sites such as newyork.com.
• Focused Portals: For: Communications,   Free Stuff,   Information Technology,   Jobs,   Libraries,   Programmers,   U.S. Government,   Zoos.
• NerdWorld: All sites in the search and subject index are submitted and then reviewed and organized into one of 10,000 categories.   Provides a numerical score, and then clusters its findings.
• Open Directory Project: uses human editors to compile a thorough and organized set of categories of links.   Their "goal is to produce the most comprehensive directory of the web."
• Netscape Search has 15 categories that "relies on real people rather than automated web crawlers to find and categorize web sites."
• Suite101.com: uses "Contributing Editors who have published more than 13,000 online articles on topics ranging from politics to pets to gardening," etc. in 11 categories.

How To   on the   InterNet

How To
&
FAQs

• Avoid Spam  CAUCE,  Change e-mail,  Information,  Java Script,  JunkBusters,  Network Abuse Clearinghouse,  Password,  Sam Spade,  SpamCop.
• Book Purchasing: AddALL compares book prices and services among 41 stores,   or   BestBookBuys. compares prices from 28 book stores,  or Even Better: compares prices for books, movies, and music.   Both Advanced Book Exchange  and  BookFinder locate out of print or used, rare, and antiquarian books.   Try  ISDN.NU to search specific stores by ISDN number.
• Choose a Search Tool  and then see Search Engine Showdown
• eShop: is an interactive buyers guide for comparison shopping.
• eHow: says they are "the most comprehensive source of information on how to do things, offering thousands of specific project instructions."
• FAQs: include E-mail FAQ, and   Internet FAQ Archives.
• Finding News,  or  Finding newsgroups.
• Find People: Try Finding People,  or MESA,  or Reverse Lookup.
• How Stuff Works: From engines through computers to food, this is the place.
• Minimize Identity Theft: Try: CALPIRG,  FTC,  ID Theft Clearinghouse,  Privacy Rights,   or  take this Quiz.
• WWW:   Web Accessibility   or  WWW Development Resources.

Tools   on the   InterNet

• Anonymity:  Anonymizer,   Anonymizit,  Freedom,  IDzap,  ZeroKnowledge.
• Area Codes:   AT&T,   Fone Finder,   International.
• Converters: Airport & City Codes, or Bookmarks,   or  Calculators,   or  Calendar,   or  Currency.
• Client Search Tools: Alexa,   Bullseye,   Copernic,   Gold Rush,   GuruNET,  or Watson.
• InteractiveTest: create interactive multiple-choice quizzes.
• Language Dictionaries: RefDesk,   Rivendel,   travlang,   Web On Line,  or Yahoo's Foreign Dictionaries
• Language Translators: Alta Vista,   FreeTranslation,   InterTran,   Systran   or these lists: IPL,   Translation Guide,   Translate-Free,   Working Dog,   Martindale's Dictionaries and Translator List.
• Measure 4 Measure: a large annotated collection of conversion and estimation tools for Science / Math, Health, Finance, and others.
• Research-It includes several dictionaries (English, computing, rhyme, pronounciation), biographical and quotation search, geographical, shipping, and financial, tools.
• Statistical Calculations: information and resources to perform statistical analyses.
• The Reference Desk: an eclectic and comprehensive information source, hosted by Jim Martindale at the University of California, Irvine.
• VOIP: Dialpad,   Firetalk,   IRIS Phone,  Net2Phone,  MedaRing,  My Free LD,   PhoneFree, for free long distance calls over the InterNet.   Or consider Pulver's enhanced list.

Topical   InterNet   Search   Resources

Topic

Specific

Search

Sites

• Academic  (mostly university level) research sites include: Alpha Search,  Infomine,  MEL,   SearchEdu.
• Biographies: Astronauts,  Composers,  Congress,  First Ladies,  Founding Fathers,  Mathematicians,  Miscellaneous (A&E),  Miscellaneous (Lives),  Presidents,  Pulitzer Prize Winners,  and  Who's Who.
• Books on the InterNet:   On-Line Books Page: a complete list of books on-line, available by author, subject, or title.
• Computers:   Categories,  PC Hardware Compatibility.
• Critical Mass: Linkaway2 provides a wide variety of search capability and information, as well as useful links to business,  education,  government,  health,  news,  travel, etc.
• Direct Search: is an extensive and eclectic list of InterNet "resources that are not easily searchable from general search tools such as Alta Vista, Hotbot, and Infoseek."
• Discussion Groups: Google News Groups: is "where you can read, search, participate in and subscribe to more than 80,000 discussion forums, including Usenet newsgroups."   or   Discussions,   or  RmarQ   or   Talkway.
• Genealogy sites include: Ancestry.Com,   Cyndi's List,   FamilySearch,   Roots-L.  or   Vital Records.
• Government: American Fact Finder, for Census information,   or   Frequently Used Sites, an annotated list of links to Business, Census, Congress, Consumer, Crime, Education, Foreign, Health, Natural Resources, Scientific, etc.,   or   Gov Documents Resources, a rich source for U.S. Government documents   or  NAIL, the National Archives and Records Administration's database containing thousands of still pictures, maps, sound recordings and textual documents,  or  Thomas, the U.S. legislative information site hosted by the Library of Congress to provide the facts about Congress, including bills, votes, the Congressional Record, committee information, and historical documents.
• HTML sites for: Beginners,  Intermediate,  Advanced,  Color,  Converters,  Editors,  Image optimizer,    Link Check,  References,  Templates,  and  Validation.
• Images: Try:   AV Photo Finder   or   Berkeley's Image Finder  or   ditto.com   or  The Amazing Picture Machine   or   WebSEEK   or   Yahoo Picture Gallery.
• Information Please: "Between 1938 and 1952, Information Please was the leading radio quiz show."  Here you can search their extensive almanacs, encyclopedia, and dictionary.
• International:   Australia,   Canada,  France,  Germany,  International Organization Network,  New Zealand,   Search Europe,  United Kingdom,   or World Sites Europe.
• InterNet:   Atlas,   Bandwidth 1,   Bandwidth 2,  Big Picture,  Demographics,  Domain Survey,  Glossary,  Geography,  History (Web Ref),  History (Internet Soc.),  ISPs,  Scam Busters,  Topics,  Traffic Report,  Whois.
• K-12 Education: Blue Web'n has 12 categories using the Dewey system,  or  Gateway,   or Internet Training,   or  PBS TeacherSource, which correlates its classroom activities to National & state curriculum standards,   or  Searchopolis, a filtered tool designed for K-12 Students.
• Investigator's Toolkit: provides brief annotated links to an assortment of resources for researchers.
• Keeping Current: Nowhere are the detail, scope, and variety on the InterNet more visible than in those sites that attempt to track what is most current, such as: Digital Librarian,  Neat New Stuff,  Net Happenings,  Research Buzz,  and  URLwire.
• Legal information can be found at: Counsel Quest,   Internet Law Library,   LawCrawler,   and   LawRunner, four comprehensive sites, as well as at  Nolo's Legal Encyclopedia.
• Maps:   DeLorme,   Map Library,   Map Machine,   MapQuest,   Maps On Us,   MapServer,   Microsoft's TerraServer,   World Atlas, or   Xerox PARC Map Viewer.
• Multimedia: Ultimate Midi Page, a very large source of midi music,   or for  MP3
• News:   AJR,   AP World,   BBC,   CNN,   Fused News,   Global Beat,   Magazine Rack,   NewsTracker,  TV Archives,   or  World News  by Continent.
• Periodicals:   Scholarly Journals.
• Public Interest:   Center for Public Interest.
• Yahoo WebRing: is the WebRing search site that aligns InterNet homepages by content, and includes more than half a million sites. An index is available too.
• U.S. Newspapers,  and their  U.S. archives,  and  Non-US archives.  For National coverage, link to the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, (which includes the ability to search),  or USA Today.
• Technology: Whatis?: contains over 2,000 encyclopedic definition/topics.
• Weather:   Weather.com: for National weather   or   UM Weather: provides "access to thousands of forecasts, images, and the Net's largest collection of weather links."
• Words:  Acronyms and Abbreviations,   Acronym Finder,  Glossary of Literary Terms,   I Love Languages,   Merriam-Webster OnLine,   Rhymes, Synonyms, etc., Thesaurus, Phrases & Quotations,     Webster's Unabridged,   WordNet,   Worksheet Generator,   Words  or   Ye Olde English.