web search tool

Subject Directories




Standard Directories

• Best of the Web (botw.org) -
  similar to Open Directory
  
• Open Directory (dmoz.org)
  -- Also used at AOL, Google, Exalead and many others.
  
• Yahoo (dir.yahoo.com)
  

Scholarly Resources - Directories

• Academic Info (www.academicinfo.net)
  - "Gateway to quality educational resources". 25,000 resources for
  high school and college.
  
• BUBL Link (bubl.ac.uk/link)
  - Strathglyde University, UK
  
• InfoMine (infomine.ucr.edu)
  - University of California (USA) - about 16,000 librarian-selected links,
  and 75,000 crawled links. WSS Pick
  
• Internet Public Library
  (www.ipl.org/) - about 40,000 sites. Maintained by IPL Consortium of several
  US and Canadian schools of library science.
  
• Intute (www.intute.ac.uk)
  - network of UK universities. Has over 123,000 resources. See the Virtual
  Training Suite for free tutorials on doing research on the Internet. WSS
  Pick
  
• Librarians' Index to the Internet
  (lii.org)- associated with the California State Library (USA) - around
  20,000 resources. Being taken over by IPL. WSS Pick
  
• Michigan eLibrary
  (http://web.mel.org/index.jsp) - "Best of the Web" as part of topical
  pathfinders.
  
• Pinakes (www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html) - Heriot
  Watt University (UK) - a Subject Launchpad
  
• Scout Report
  - Archives (scout.cs.wisc.edu/archives) - Computer Sciences Department
  of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Searchable database of 24,350 selected
  sites indexed using Library of Congress Subject Headings. WSS
  Pick
  
• See directories from Canadian libraries below.
  
  

Canadian Directories

• National
  Library of Canada Canadian Information by Subject (www.nlc-bnc.ca/caninfo/ecaninfo.htm)
  - 14,000 sites (June 2008)
  
• Virtual Reference
  Library - Toronto Public Library (www.virtualreferencelibrary.ca) - Over
  25,000 sites reviewed and classified.
  
• La Toile du Québec
  (www.toile.qc.ca) -- Le répertoire des sites Web québécois
  

Subject Guide - Directories

• About.com (www.about.com)
  About 650 guides - generally very good.
  
• Suite101 (www.suite101.com)
  - 850 freelance writers
  
• WWW Virtual Library (www.vlib.org)
  - over 400 topics - scholarly but often no longer updated.
  
• Mahalo (www.mahalo.com)
  - topical guides created from submissions by individuals.
  
• Squidoo (www.squidoo.com)
  - "lenses" on topics done by individuals. Very mixed quality.
  

Meta-Directories

• See Directories to Search Engines and Subject
  Directories
  

Portals


Portals will have a wide variety of search services, content, and personal
tools (communication, calendars etc) and offer the capability to create a personal
page.

• AOL (www.aol.com) Public
  portal from AOL.
  
• Excite (www.excite.com)
  - Owned by IAC/Interactive
  
• Google (www.google.com)
  - Create a personal iGoogle page. See General
  Information About iGoogle. WSS Pick
  
• MyWay (www.myway.com) -
  Owned by IAC/Interactive. Has a Canadian version (http://canada.myway.com/)
  
• Live (www.live.com) - replaces
  MSN by Microsoft.
  
• Sympatico MSN (sympatico.msn.ca)
  -- Canadian content
  
• Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) WSS
  Pick
  

Subject Guide - Directories

• About.com (www.about.com)
  About 600 guides. Good content but Loaded with popups and ads.
  
• Suite101 (www.suite101.com)
  - 850 writers
  
• WWW Virtual Library (www.vlib.org)
  - about 250 guides
  
• Mahalo (www.mahalo.com)
  - topical guides created from submissions by individuals
  
• Squidoo (www.squidoo.com)
  - "lenses" on topics done by individuals. Very mixed quality.
  

Meta-Directories

• See Directories to Search Engines and Subject
  Directories
  

Search Engines

• Alexa (www.alexa.com) Get
  site info. Tracks traffic at sites.
  
• Alltheweb (www.alltheweb.com) Has
  Livesearch for getting query suggestions. Uses Yahoo database.
  
• AltaVista (www.av.com) Uses
  Yahoo database.
  
• Ask (www.ask.com) Known
  for smart answers. Can save results in MyStuff. WSS Pick
  
• AOL Search (search.aol.com)
  Uses Google and Open Directory
  
• Brainboost (www.brainboost.com)
  question answering engine. Part of Answers.com.
  
• Exalead (www.exalead.com/search)
  Has a strong advanced search.
  
• Factbites
  (www.factbites.com) Finds meaningful sentences.
  
• Gigablast (www.gigablast.com)
  No sponsored ads. Has Gigabits.
  
• Google (www.google.com)
  World's most popular search engine. WSS Pick
  
• Hakia (www.hakia.com) New
  meaning-based engine. WSS Pick
  
• Live Search (www.live.com)
  Microsoft's search engine.
  
• Mozbot (www.mozbot.com).
  Uses Google. Shows suggestions. Can exclude sites.
  
• MsDewey (www.msdewey.com/).
  Ms Dewey talks to you while you search Live.com. Still
  around. Must try
  
• Searchtheweb2 (www.searchtheweb2.com).
  Uses Google. Will generate a list of related search queries done by other
  users from the Google database.
  
• Snap (www.snap.com) Visual
  display allows for previewing results. Ranking is influenced by other searchers.
  
• Yahoo Search (search.yahoo.com) Has
  many search tools plus personal MyWeb. WSS Pick
  
  
• Alpha (au.alpha.yahoo.com)
  - Yahoo's experimental search engine where you configure the display.
  
• SearchMash (searchmash.com)
  - Google's experimental search interface
  

• Google
  Suggest (www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en) - Google offers suggestions
  as you type.
  
• Google Trends (www.google.com/trends)
  - enter two concepts, names, things, etc, and compare volume of searches and
  geographic areas; eg stephen harper, stephane dion. Updated daily.
  
• Google Experimental
  Search (www.google.com/experimental) - two experiments: keyboard shortcuts,
  and alternative views on a timeline, map, and in context.
  

• BananaSLUG (www.bananaslug.com)
  - adds a word at random to your query with interesting results
  
• FindForward (www.findforward.com)
  - several options including getting results on permutation of terms (Search
  Grid), getting person info, getting thing info - and much else. Also just
  a plain Search
  Grid (http://blog.outer-court.com/search-grid/). Created by Philipp Lenssen.
  
• Guess
  the Google (grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/) guess the
  keywords for an image search. WSS Pick
  
• 55 Ways to Have Fun with Google
  (www.55fun.com/) - pictures, stories, games, quizzes ... Download the pdf
  version.
  
• Google
  UK - Things to do (www.google.co.uk/landing/thingstodo/#tip1) - 52 things
  you can do through Google - web, blogs, mail, documents - many things. WSS
  Pick
  
• Multilingual
  Search Interfaces for Translators (www.multilingual.ch/search_interfaces.htm)
  - many ways to do language searches on Google.
  
• Babelplex Bilingual Google
  (babelplex.com/) - search in one language and get results in that plus one
  other. "Babelplex plugs your bilingual query into any of 24 International
  editions of Google."
  
• Google Fight (www.googlefight.com)
  - pit one opposite against another.
  
• Googlism.com - who is,
  what is etc - extracts sentence fragments.
  
• Cookin' with Google by Tara Calishain.
  
• SearchMash (www.searchmash.com)
  - Google's other interface.
  
• Touchgraph Google Browser
  (www.touchgraph.com) - see related links to a web site as a map of lines and
  nodes. Has new visuals. WSS Pick
  
  
• Simply
  Google (www.usabilityviews.com/simply_google.htm) - "simple version
  of Google" - everything on one page including blogs done by Google departments.
  

Scholarly

• Google Scholar (scholar.google.com)
  - indexes academic content from journals, repositories such as Ingenta, OCLC
  books, web sites, and services such as PubMed, and does citation analysis
  
• Masterkey (masterkey.indexdata.com)
  - searches OAIster, Open Content Alliance and three less scholarly sources
  such as Wikipedia.
  
• Oaister (oaister.umdl.umich.edu)
  - academically-oriented digital resources .
  
• Lalisio (http://literature.lalisio.com/oai.html)
  - browse books (Amazon, Abebooks and Powell's), open access (arXiv and PubMed
  Central), and journals.
  
• Amazon (www.amazon.com)
  - search
  inside the book
  
• Google Book Search (books.google.com)
  - competitive to Amazon
  
• Worldcat.org (www.worldcat.org)
  - OCLC's library catalog search - over 1 billion items.
  
• Internet Archive
  (www.archive.org) - digital library with texts, audio and video. Part of Open
  Content Alliance project.
  
• Scirus (www.scirus.com/srsapp/)
  - is a science-focused search engine from Elsevier "offering them a unique
  combination of free Web information and journal content, patent databases,
  digital archives and libraries, repositories and preprint servers."
  
• Scitopia (www.scitopia.org)
  - 13 science and technology society publishers is offering a “free”
  aggregated search service across all its resources.
  

Meta-Searchers


PPC = pay-for-click engines

• Allplus (www.allplus.com)
  - Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask - cluster tree and cluster graph. 3-panel display.
  WWS Pick
  
  
• Carrot Clustering Engine
  (demo.carrot2.org) uses web metasearch from etools.ch. Impressive clustering.
  Has other collections. WWS pick
  
• Clusty (www.clusty.com)
  - 3 engines for Web search plus various others. Also has collections for news,
  images, blogs and more. Clusters results and will 'remix' clusters. Owned
  by Vivisimo. MWS Pick
  
• Cluuz (www.cluuz.com) searches
  Yahoo, Live, Alexa, and Technorati and delivers results in clusters or charts.
  
• DogPile (www.dogpile.com)
  - 4 best engines plus some PPC. Owned by Infospace.
  
• Draze (www.draze.com) -
  Google, Yahoo, and MSN - and they all work.
  
• eTools.ch (etools.ch) -
  weight the importance of the source engines - Altavista, Ask, Google, MSN
  and others. WWS Pick
  
• Info.com (www.info.com)
  - Infospace-based metasearch engine like Excite and Metacrawler but better
  at showing sponsored listings. Also news, health, audio, video and more. MWS
  Pick
  
• iSeek (www.iseek.com) -
  4 web search engines (see sources) and excellent clustering. WWS
  pick
  
• Ixquick (www.ixquick.com)
  -5 engines, handles syntax well. Will search anonymously for you.
  
• iZito (www.izito.com/)
  - 6 engines. Clusters results. Interfaces for the Netherlands, the UK and
  the USA. WWS Pick
  
• Metacrawler (www.metacrawler.com)
  - same as Dogpile.
  
• Polymeta (www.polymeta.com)
  - uses same clustering as AllPlus, has more search engines. WSS
  Pick
  
  
  
• Scour (www.scour.com) - Social seach
  engine. Google, Yahoo, MSN - vote and comment.
  
• Search.com (www.search.com)
  - Ask, Google, MSN, Open Directory. Also has specialty
  searches.
  
• SearchQuilt (searchquilt.com)
  - searches across Google's collections and some others.
  
• SortFix (www.sortfix.com) - select
  from Google, Yahoo, and dmoz. Use SortFix's tools to add or subtract words.
  promising
  
• Surfwax (www.surfwax.com)
  - produces useful sitesnaps that summarizes the page. Uses MSN, Alltheweb
  (Yahoo), Hotbot (Ask?), Yahoo news and CNN.
  
• Thumbshots.com Ranking
  (ranking.thumbshots.com) - compare two of MSN, Yahoo, Google
  
• TripleMe (www.tripleme.com)
  - Yahoo, Google, Live in 3 columns.
  
• Viewzi (www.viewzi.com) - Presents options
  for different views of the results: screenshot, text, powergrid, photos -
  and more. Searches several engines. WSS Pick
  
• Zuula (www.zuula.com) Shows
  search results by tab - Google, Yahoo, MSN, Gigablast, Exalead, ALexa. Keeps
  recent searches. WWS pick
  

Make Your Own Engines

• Rollyo (www.rollyo.com)
  - create your own searchroll of sites to search. Uses Yahoo database WWS
  pick
  
• Topicle (www.topicle.com)
  - uses Google Custom Search. SImilar to Rollyo.
  
• Mojeek personal search
  (www.mojeek.com/mps) - up to 1000 domains. Customize.
  
• Live.com (search.live.com)
  - Create a search macro (under More tab as Edit Macros).
  
• Google Coop (www.google.com/coop)
  - Create your own search engine. WWS pick
  
• Gigablast Custom
  Topic Search (www.gigablast.com/cts.html) - Search up to 500 sites.
  
• Yahoo Search!
  BOSS (http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/) - Aimed at developers,
  start-ups and large internet companies who want to create a web search product.
  
• Eurekster Swicki
  (http://swicki.eurekster.com/) - Swickis learn from the community at a site
  or blog.
  

Directories to Search Engines and Databases

• Beaucoup (www.beaucoup.com)
  - by subject and country Old
  
• Complete Planet
  (www.completeplanet.com) - by topic Old
  
• Pandia Powersearch
  (www.pandia.com/powersearch) - metasearch and all-in-one search engine list.
  Good but small
  
• Search Engine
  Colossus (www.searchenginecolossus.com) - by country
  
• WorldJump (www.worldjump.com)
  by theme and country. Claims 10,000 listed.
  

All-in-One Page

• Intelways (www.intelways.com)
  300+ tools categorized. Reasonably up-to-date. WSS Pick
  
• Searchitall (www.searchitall.com)
  Very large page of organized links.
  
• Sputtr (www.sputtr.com)
  - 36 search buttons
  
• Whonu (www.whonu.com)
  - New version mainly organizes Google search tools with some extras for specialty
  searches. WSS Pick
  

Examples of Special

Desktop Search - Search Computer and Web


Note: Products don't attract much attention today especially
since VISTA supports more desktop search. On older machines, the applications
can slow down the computer. ALso people are wary of privacy issues.

• Copernic Desktop Search 2.0 - search hard drive for Microsoft
  Office files, PDFs, multimedia (sound, video, pictures), browser history,
  favorites, Outlook email or Eudora, IE or Firefox browser history, sound and
  video. Redesigned interface.
  http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/
  
  
• Google Desktop - indexes Microsoft Office files, Internet
  Explorer and Firefox browser history, Outlook email and GMail. Has a sidebar
  with several panels. Requires Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP3+. Version 4.0.
  Works with Vista. Also Linux and Mac. Has Google Gadgets for desktop or homepage.
  Can add Desktop gadgets to your iGoogle homepage.
  http://desktop.google.com/
  
• Windows Desktop Search 3.01 Find e-mail messages, photos,
  and music on your computer instantly. Works through a MSN Search Toolbar to
  IE that also adds tabbed browsing. Also has a Windows deskbar and an Office
  toolbar. For Windows XP. Function was built into Vista. Windows Search 4.0
  available for XP and Vista.
  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/default.mspx
  
• X1 Professional Client - Search across all files and email
  on one's computer and view. Integrated with Microsoft Outlook and Outlook
  Express, Lotus Notes, Mozilla Thunderbird. Searches 400 file formats and displays
  in native format . Requires Windows XP / Vista. $50 US
  http://pro.x1.com/
  

Toolbars (Selected)

• 1-Click Answers from Answers.com
  - Alt Click on a word or phrase or use Answers Toolbar to look up information.
  
  http://www.answers.com/main/product_info.jsp
  
  
• Advanced Searchbar - has over 100 search engines. Internet
  Explorer only.
  http://www.advancedsearchbar.com/
  
• Ask Toolbar - personalize searching, save pages and searches.
  Works with the online MyStuff. Available for IE and Firefox.
  http://sp.ask.com/en/docs/toolbar
  
• Bookmarklets - Greg Notess's list of Search Engine Bookmarklets
  (Mar 2008)
  http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/bmlets/
  
  
• Google toolbar - search Google, highlight search terms,
  block popups. Available for IE and Firefox. WSS Pick
  http://toolbar.google.com
  
• Groowe toolbar - for Firefox and Internet Explorer. Has
  Google, Yahoo, Live, Ask, del.icio.us, Digg and many others. Popular
  http://groowe.com/
  
  
• Windows Live Toolbar - search from any page, protection
  from phishing, maps and weather, custom buttons. Requires Windows XP SP2 or
  Vista and IE 6.0 or higher.
  http://toolbar.live.com/
  
  
• Yahoo Companion - Yahoo services and bookmarks. IE and
  Firefox
  http://companion.yahoo.com
  

Browser Add-Ons

• Firefox Add-ons - Complete inventory of browser add-ons
  to personalize browsing experience with Firefox.
  https://addons.mozilla.org
  
• Internet Explorer Add-ons - IE Gallery for toolbars and
  extensions for the IE8 browser. Not as extensive as Firefox's.
  http://www.ieaddons.com/en/
  

People and Places




Phone Directories

• EMail Addresses (www.emailaddresses.com/email_find.htm)
  
• Superpages.com - US
  business and residents
  

• Argali White and Yellow (www.argali.com)
  - download. Personal edition is free (with ads), Professional is $29.95 US/yr
  Very Good.
  
• International White and Yellow (www.wayp.com/)
  
• Infobel World Directories (www.infobel.com/teldir/) White and yellow for 170 countries.
  
• Ixquick International Phone Directory (http://ixquick.com/eng/phone.html)
  
• 192.com - UK's leading local
  search engine - people, businesses, maps.
  
• MelissaData Lookups www.melissadata.com/Lookups/index.htm - telephone numbers and
  addresses, maps and aerial views. US and Canada.
  
  
• SearchBug (www.searchbug.com)
  Find people and businesses. Has many finding tools
  
• White Pages (www.whitepages.com) - US/Canada directory - reverse lookups
  
• White Pages Around the World www.whitepagesglobal.com/
  

• Findit In Canada (www.finditincanada.ca/index.html) Canadian Electronic Yellow
  Pages - by city and province.
  
• Yellowpages.ca (www.yellowpages.ca)
  by the YellowPages Group who also does Canada411.
  
• CanPages.ca (www.canpages.ca)
  for Ontario, BC, Quebec, Alberta, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
  WSS Pick
  

Other People Search Services

• ZoomInfo (www.zoominfo.com)
  Information scraped off the Web about people . WSS Pick
  
• Wink (www.wink.com) searches
  online communities. Enter additional information for location, interests,
  jobs.
  
• 123People (www.123people.com)
  searches web and social networks - US and Europe. New
  

Maps

• Google Maps maps.google.com
  - very interactive. Has added street views for many cities around the world
  (but not Canada). Covers Canada well.
  
• Live Maps - Live Local
  combines local search and maps. In US and UK has bird's eye view of streets
  in many cities. Can draw on maps. Many features. Good coverage for Canada.
  
• Maporama www.maporama.com
  - French company. International coverage.
  
• Mapquest www.mapquest.com
  - Now has MapQuest Local with local information for places in US and Canada
  
• Yahoo Maps maps.yahoo.com
  - Covers US and Canada. Connects to real time traffic for US cities.
  

URL: http://plc.fis.utoronto.ca/courses/gharris/services.htm
© Gwen Harris 1999 - 2008 Last updated:November 2, 2008