Search Engines The Best of the Best 5 useful categories with 2 excellent search engines in each.

Kid-Safe Search Sites
	This site definitely has “kid appeal”. The site is bright and inviting and organized into many easy to understand sections. There are links to fun activities, games, educational links, and kid appropriate current events. Teachers will find this site a valuable resource they can safely direct students to.
http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/
	By now, who doesn’t know Jeeves? Ask Jeeves for Kids is a great resource for kids researching topics or who have questions on how to do things. The site is organized into easy to understand categories and students can begin mining it for information with little instruction. Another added benefit is Jeeves will check its search results against Cyber Patrol block list to make sure information and sites are kid-safe.
http://www.ajkids.com/

Multi-Media Sounds
FindSounds Search the Web for Sounds	What fun are multimedia projects without some fun sounds? This search engine locates sound files to your specifications. You can enter file type, mono or stereo, channels, even maximum file size. It’s a very simple and easy to use site. Anyone will quickly find sounds they can use for any purpose.
http://www.findsounds.com/
MIDI DATABASE	Midi files are a popular sound format for multimedia presentations and WebPages. They are smaller in size and are essentially the “Elevator Music” versions of most classical and contemporary music. This database makes it easy to find the midi files for you. It separates search results into “Free” and “Pay For” midi files.
www.mididb.com

General Search Engines
	Google is one of the most widely used and recognized search engines. I have always had great success finding the information I needed, even when other search engines failed. The Google portal is simple and concise. This makes directing student searches in a lab environment ideal since there is little to distract students with except the search results.
www.google.com
	One of the web’s oldest search engines. Yahoo offers some enhancements over other search engines, such as category links for your searches. These make expanding or modifying your search easier and may help keep you from experiencing a “Dead End” search.
www.yahoo.com

News Search Engines
	Much like its parent engine, Google News is a clear and concise portal for finding world or local news. It’s linked to 4500 news sites ensuring a variety sources and points of view. You can also subscribe for news alerts and view all text versions of the information you are seeking.
http://news.google.com/
	AltaVista is the oldest search engine on the web, founded in 1995. Its news portal is very plain and easy to navigate. It has an easy to use pull-down menu under the search entry field to make refining your search as easy as a few mouse clicks.
http://www.altavista.com/news/

Shopping Search Engines
	Froogle is a new service added onto the Google backbone. Anyone who enjoys Google will find Froogle easy and familiar. In my test visits, I was impressed with the search returns which included images. You could also set price ranges. Google is a meta search engine, meaning it locates the best deal on any website or service.
http://www.google.com/froogle
	Price Grabber has been around a while and has name recognition. Its menu interface is easy to read and yet full of selections and categories. Searches are returned with a “star” rating and review of the merchandise. It allows you to search by category, manufacturer, even by holiday or event!
www.pricegrabber.com