Carol Briggs

SLM 521

6/2/09

Search Engines

 

General Search Engines:

-  Google

                Google.com is a good standard search engine and provides searches to images, videos, maps, news, and shopping.  One neat new option that Google provides is the “wonder wheel.”  The wonder wheel provides users with more key words to help users narrow their searches.   For example, if you search “butterfly” the wonder wheel will provide such terms as “butterfly gardens” and “butterfly life cycle.”  The wonder wheel option is shown when you press “show options.” 

-  Altavista

                Altavista.com has web, image, and news tabs.  It is easy to use.  It has the option to do an advanced search that allows users to limit search by time frame, type of document, location, and other options. 

 

Kid Safe Search Engines:

- Kids Click

                Kidsclick.org helps to point users to child-appropriate websites.  It is run by the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose University.  They do not accept marketing on the kids click pages, so the content is more educational and less commercial.  While kids click helps point users to age-appropriate websites, they are not a filter for “bad” websites. 

- Ask for Kids

                Askkids.com is designed for children aged 6-12.  It has links that help you narrow your search.  The search engine is attractive and easy to use.  It does have some commercial content on it, but it is separate from the informational content. 

 

Media Search Engines:

- Google

                It is easy to search for videos and images on google.com.  Google provides ways for users to limit image and video searches.  For example, you may limit video searches by length. 

- Yahoo Search

                At Yahoo Search  you have the ability to search for videos and images.  Yahoo Search provides advanced search options.  One may, for example, search for video by format (for example Quicktime, etc. . .)

 

Meta Search Engines:

- Clusty

                Clusty.com is a meta search engine.  It was a real find for me!   It clusters results into categories such as “games,” “kids,”  and other relavent headings.  The clusters of search results are extremely helpful and set this search engine apart from many others. 

- Dogpile

                Dogpile.com is a meta search engine.  It searches Google, Live search, ask.com, and MSN search. It provides you with some suggestions on how to narrow your search.  It has images, video, and news.  Some commercial stuff does pop up when you do a search, but it isn’t an overwhelming amount.

 

News Search Engines:

- Google

                I hate to keep mentioning Google, but when I compare it to other search engines, it often gives you a lot of options.  Google gives you the option to filter news stories by date, news source, location, and news source. 

- Altavista

                Altavista has a news tab where the stories are searchable by country of the news media organization, date range, and topic.