Search Engines______________________________

NCWC Librarians Recommend:

Basic Search Engines______________________________

Google
http://www.google.com/
Returns results with high relevance and a short summary.  The best search engine there is.

AlltheWeb
http://www.alltheweb.com/
Another good search engine, AlltheWeb uses Yahoo's directory and executes a powerful search.

Gigablast
http://www.gigablast.com
Gigablast represents another simple search engine; no frills, lots of results.

WebBrain
http://www.webbrain.com/
Allows searcher to see the visual relationships that exist in a search query.  Especially fun for the clickable interface.

Lycos
http://www.lycos.com/
Search for web pages in advanced mode using powerful Boolean-like operators, as well as a topical directory, sounds and images, and use special features to narrow your search.

Kid's Search Tools
http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm
Collection of search tools for locating information for kids.

Invisible Web - What Normal Search Engines Can't See________  

IncyWincy - Invisible Web Search Engine
http://www.incywincy.com/ 
Rich directory of sites organized by topic, as well as a powerful search engine.

CompletePlanet
http://www.completeplanet.com/
The "front door to the deep web," CompletePlanet is a way to search for information that might not make it to the level of a simple search engine.

Direct Search
http://www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm
Provides access to some specific speeches, streaming news and public affairs, and web accessible Congressional Research Service Reports.

Invisible Web Directory
http://www.invisible-web.net/
Companion web site to the Sherman and Price book, The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See. Contains a nice collection of invisible web sites organized by topic/subject category.

Metasearch Engines - Search several search engines at the same time

Clusty
http://clusty.com/
Clusty is a special kind of "clustering" browser, dividing your results into categories that pop up when you search.  A very user-friendly way of grouping results.

WebCrawler
http://webcrawler.com/
Searches the larger search engines, like Google, Yahoo, Teoma, and more and returns results of web pages, news, photos, and more.

IxQuick
http://www.ixquick.com/
A multiple/meta search engine, that executes the same search in several databases simultaneously and chooses the best results from each.

QueryServer
http://queryserver.dataware.com/
A multiple search engine which searches the web as well as news, health, money, and government information.  Provides clustering, too.

Ithaki
Metasearch engine, that selectively targets specific search engines and removes duplicate results. Contains a useful mp3 search, too.

Fossick Meta Search
http://www.gocee.com/eureka/fossick.htm
Search over 3,000 specialty search engines and topical guides; may also limit searches by country.

Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com/
Utilize various search services to look for web pages, newsgroup posting, software, and news.

Langenberg.com
http://www.langenberg.com/
A one-stop shopping site with access to topically related search engines in many areas, including area and zip codes, medicine, people and business finders, travel, weather, and much more.

Mamma - The Mother of All Search Engines
http://www.mamma.com/
Searches a variety of engines, directories, and deep content sites, formats the search request for each, puts the search results in a virtual database, removes duplicates, and displays results according to relevance.

Search.Com
http://www.search.com/
A good source of more specialized databases, with a great narrowing function that pops up after you search.

Search Thingy
http://www.searchthingy.com/search.asp
Places links to the most popular search engines (Google, Altavista, and more) on the same page, allowing the user to type the query once and search each resource separately.