Selected Search Engines

NOTE: The tools below are strongest as search engines (KEYWORD searching), even though many of them also have subject directories (CATEGORY browsing).

These engines work best for unusual words or exact phrases.
CAUTION: Even the largest search engines search no more than about 20% of the entire Internet. For best results, try more than one search engine. Also note: search engines do not search the contents of individual databases such as Medline.

Who Can Use It
Name
Coverage
Notes
World Access
 Google 3.3 billion pages indexed. Currently the best search engine on the Web. Ranks web sites by "link popularity" (# of sites linking to it). Automatic AND. Also searches PDF, Powerpoint, Word and other file types.
World Access
 alltheweb
[Formerly called FAST.] 		3.15 billion pages indexed. Use Advanced Search to limit by date, language or document type.
World Access
 Alta Vista .9 billion pages indexed. Searching within fields, such as title or URL.
World Access
 HotBot .5 billion pages indexed. Quick searching of four major search engines. Advanced Search has pull-down menus for easy searching.
World Access
 Lycos .6 billion pages indexed. Includes Multimedia Search.
World Access
 Teoma .15 billion pages indexed. Includes resource collections and suggestions for refining searches.

Selected Multiple-Search Engines

CAUTION: There are problems associated with using meta-search engines.

Who Can Use It
Name
Coverage
Notes
World Access
 DogPile Sends queries to 12 different tools. Reformats search to correspond to requirements of different search engines. Includes Google.
World Access
 ixquick Sends queries to 14 different tools. Merges the results. Indicates which tools found a particular page. Ranks the relevance of the results.
World Access
 QueryServer Sends queries to 11 different tools. It organizes results into topics.
World Access
 Vivisimo Sends queries to 11 different tools. Organizes results into topics for quick and efficient searching.

Newsgroup Search Engines

Who Can Use It
Name
Coverage
Notes
World Access
 Google Groups Covers 40,000+ online discussion forums, with 800 million+ messages. The archive goes back to 1981.

Audio, Images, Video Search Engines

Who Can Use It
Name
Coverage
Notes
World Access
 Alta Vista   Separate searches for audio, video and images. Its advanced searches allows limiting by duration and format.
World Access
 Ditto   Search or browse to find images on the web. Matches are displayed in thumbnail format.
World Access
 Google Image Search 390 million images. Search to find images on the web. Matches are displayed in thumbnail format.
World Access
 Lycos   Separate searches for images, audio, MP3s and video.

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