SLM521
Search Engines
Richard McFarland
October 20, 2005
Below is a list of the best search engines organized by category. These categories are: General Search Engines, News Search Engines, Kid Safe Search Engines, Meta Search Engines and Image Search Engines.
General Search Engines
Google gets high marks for ease of use and quick response. Because Google’s index of web pages is the largest in the world, it is an excellent search engine to start your search with. It returns outstanding numbers of relevant results. Each web page includes an excerpt which helps you determine what information the site contains. This helps you narrow down and locate the web sites most helpful to your search without opening useless web sites.
Yahoo
Yahoo is another search engine which delivers relevant search results in a fast manner. As the oldest web directory on line it accesses huge numbers of sites during a search. In the Yahoo main page you can use subject tabs to search for images, videos, people, news, local information and shopping information which is a wonderful feature for pinpointing your search.
News Search Engines
CNN.com
As a cable news network CNN broadcasts important news
stories from across the globe. Stories
are updated often and are readily accessible from the main page. Major stories are listed at the bottom of the
main page, organized into the following categories:
Google News
Google News is an excellent
search engine because it accesses thousands of news sources including many well
known sources such as ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News. Google also searches foreign news sources such
as Arab news and the BBC. Top stories
are listed first on the page and then other stories are organized by
subject. Articles contain a brief excerpt
detailing what an article is about and the news sources accessed for the
article are listed. This makes it easy
for the user to determine if the article will be useful and what source it came
from.
Kid Safe Search Engines
Yahooligans
Yahooligans is a wonderful kid safe search engine designed for kids, ages 7 to 12. Web sites are screened for appropriate content for students in this age range and adult advertising is excluded. The site is easy for students to use and is presented in a colorful, interesting manner. Main topics for searches are listed in the center under the Yahooligans Directory while subtopics such as Games and Jokes are listed on the side. An especially useful feature is Ask Earl where students may get answers to questions that have “stumped” them.
KidsClick!
KidsClick is a great search engine that I use with my students at school. This search engine lists about 5000 age appropriate, kid friendly websites organized by categories. You can search for subjects by letter or enter a search word or click on a subject and a list of relevant sites will appear. Each site listed has a brief summary detailing what the site is about which helps students locate the most relevant sites quickly.
Dogpile
Dogpile is a wonderful Meta Search Engine that
is designed to provide the best search results quickly. When you enter your search criteria, Dogpile accesses well known search engines such as Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN Search and Yahoo Search, compiles the best results and removes duplicate
results. Your search results are listed
in order of relevancy from closest match to least match with the URL of the
website listed and a note stating which search engine (or engines) the site was
found on. Because Dogpile
accesses so many search engines, search results are enormous.
Vivisimo
Vivsimo is also a very good Meta Search Engine
that produces huge search results. Vivsimo incorporates a very helpful feature called
clustered results in which similar search results are organized into meaningful
categories. If your search term produces
broad results, those results are compartmentalized into useful categories for
easy access.
Image Search Engines
Google Images
I rank Google Images
first because of my familiarity with the site.
I have used Google Images many times and have always had success
locating images I am searching for. The
site is easy to use and returns outstanding numbers of images. Images are presented from the most compatible
to the least so it is likely you will find what you are looking for in the
first few pages.
AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com/image/default
AltaVista is another
excellent Image Search Engine which returns huge numbers of images. It shows images much like Google Images does
but in AltaVista you can choose to search for photos, graphics, banners or any
combination of the three in your search.
AltaVista has a Family Filter capability which you can turn on or
off. This feature is excellent for
blocking out inappropriate images when students are doing image searches.