Index

Types of Search Engines

There are many search engines on the web, some are directories and some are indexes.

A directory has some kind of evaluation being done on the pages that are being searched. The pages are palced into controlled-vocabulary categories. Example directories are Yahoo and the Clearinghouse. If you don't know exactly what you are looking for, then use a directory to help you browse through the web.

An index is maintained by a computer program known as a robot or a spider. A spider searches the web for new pages and then creates an index of all the key words found on a page. This sort of indexing is known as free-text, since no evaluation is being done on what words are beinbg indexed.

A people finder is a listing of people and e-mail addresses.

A newsgroup search looks through Usenet listings for the topic you want.

A meta search site is a search site that doesn't do any indexing or categorizing of its own, however it does call several other indexes/directories and summarizes the results.

A clip art search site searches the web for backgrounds and images.

An audio search site searches the web for sound files.

An FTP search site searches the web looking for files tha can be downloaded.

A jobs search site allows you to look for job offers on the internet.

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Directories

Clearinghouse
Subject specific guides to the internet
Virtual Library
Subject specific quides to the internet
Library Web Servers
A listing of library catalogues accessible through the web from around the country and world
Library Catalogues
A listing of telent accessible library catalogues from around the country and world
Galaxy
A subject guide for specialists or professional in a field.
Internet Public Library
Managed by professional librarians
LookSmart
Browse three levels at once
Lycos Top 5%
A reviewed directory of interesting web sites
NetGuide
A daily directory of what is available on the web.
The Scout Report
New sites on the web
Indices of Web Directories
Lists of lists of new things on the web.
Ten Steps to Searching
Ten steps to follow when creating a search.

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Indexes

For reviews of these sites, please see the December 3, 1996 PC Magazine.

HotBot
Full-text-indexing of 54 million documents.
World Wide Web Worm
Indexed only by hyperlink, title tag, and domain of the server. 3 million indexed pages.
Open Text Index
20 million indexed pages.
AltaVista
30 million indexed pages.

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Directories and Indexes

For reviews of these sites, please see the December 3, 1996 PC Magazine.

Yahoo
Over 370,000 categorized sites.Yahoo also will call the AltaVista index if it can't find what you are looking for.
Excite
Over 50 million full-text-indexed pages. Over 60,000 pages that have been categorized for browsing.
Magellan
Magellan has more than 40,000 reviewed sites, and 6 million indexed sites. Magellan also has a rating system of one to four stars.
WebCrawler
2 million indexed pages.
Lycos
66 million full-text-indexed sites.
Infoseek
1.5 million indexed pages.

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People Finders

Email Address Search
e-mail address finder
Switchboard
telephone numbers and mailing addresses
telephone number searching
internet @ddress finder
good for finding university e-mail addresses
WhoWhere?
e-mail address, telephone number and mailing address finder

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Newsgroup

AltaVista
Can't follow a thread. Not always comprehensive.
HotBot
Strong news seraching. Can follow a thread.
DejaNews
Featuring 20,000 newsgroups. Accurate and thorough returns
Excite
Can search Usenet exclusively
Infoseek
Doesn't have newsgroup specific filter options
Reference.com
More than 18,000 archived nesgroups,  mailing-list searching, ability to save frequently run queries

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MetaSearch

All4One
Calls AltaVista, Lycos, WebCrawler and Yahoo!
Highway 61
Calls 7 including Excite, HotBot, InfoSeek and Lycos.
Inso
Aids in creating advanced queries, then you specify which other search engine to call.
MetaCrawler
Calls 9 including Excite, Lycos, Open Text and WebCrawler.
ProFusion
Calls 6 including AltaVista, Excite, Lycos and Open Text.
Savvy Search
Calls 28 divided into 8 categories: Web indexes, Usenet, people finders, software, reference, entertainment, and technical reports.
SuperSeek
Calls 10 grouped into 3 categories: Web serach engines, Usenet, and Information Super Library FAQ and Bookstore.

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Commercial Databases

LEXIS-NEXIS
LEXIS is a law oriented database, while NEXIS contains the full-test of thousands of newspapers, repotrs, and journals.
Dialog
An expensive database that is difficult to learn.
Dow Jones News/Retrieval
Expensive business and financial database

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Government Databases

LOCIS
LOCIS: Library of COngress Information Service. A large library catalog.
THOMAS
Legislative information on the web.
FedWorld
Links to Internet-accessible reports from all agencies of the U.S. Government.

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Clip Art

WebPlaces Clip Art
Accesses many other search engines, specifically looking for clip art. Also allows browsing.

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Audio

WebPlaces Audio
Accesses many other search engines, specifically looking for audio files.

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FTP

Filez
Search the web for files that can be downloaded. Like an Archie search engine, but on the web. Allows browsing.

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Jobs

CareerWeb
Basic service is free, additional service costs $$$.
CareerCity
 Also provides a resume builder.
CareerMosaic
Most extensive service.
Jobtrak
Intended for students or alumni of specific universities or colleges.
Quintessential Career and Job-Hunting Resources Guide
A great job-hunting and career resources page that includes great expert resources, as well as a fairly inclusive list of the best job-hunting and career resources links on the Web!

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Lists of search engines

All-In-One
An excellent page that lists more search engines than you can imagine. Check it out.

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