General Search Engines

AlltheWeb: This search engine is one of the best I have found. Its results are very thorough and quick. At the bottom of the results page are options to go to specific clusters of that topic or similar queries, and multimedia links are provided as well. Advanced search is available as well, and it claims over 2 billion pages. http://www.alltheweb.com/

Yahoo: This search engine is another one that I feel should be higly rated. The search results are quick and easy to read (very novice-searcher-friendly), as the descriptions of each site is written by Yahoo’s searchers. Yahoo also draws search results using Google’s search database, which means that its results are very comprehensive. http://www.yahoo.com/

Google: This search engine is extremely comprehensive as well, providing an abundance of links according to the topic given. Google claims over 3 billion pages. However, the descriptions are not quite as user-friendly as Yahoo’s descriptions. The results are quick and comprehensive, though, and Google is considered one of the best search engine databases. http://www.google.com/

Meta-Search Engines

Ixquick: This meta-search engine is one of the top search tools; it brings the “top ten” from each search engine, and it also eliminates any duplicates. The results are thorough, and search engines that do not handle complex searches are excluded. Descriptions of each link are provided in detail. http://www.ixquick.com/

SurfWax: This meta-search tool covers several search engines, providing many results. However, the results are simply listed; there are not descriptions accompanying the links. It is a quick, thorough topic search tool. http://www.surfwax.com/

Vivisimo: This meta-search engine covers several search engines, but not as many as Surf Wax. It does provide adequate results with good descriptions given with each link. Results are given along with subject subdivisions based on words in the search results…these “clustered results” can then be clicked on for further search in that area. http://vivisimo.com/

News Search Engines

Rocket News: A great search engine for news and media. This search engine provides links to the top current news stories (breaking news), and also organizes other top current stories into several categories. This site is easy to use, and draws from many up-to-date news sources. An advanced search is also available. http://www.rocketnews.com/search/index.html

Excite News: Another excellent search engine for news. This engine provides the current breaking news stories with links, and there are good descriptions given along with each link. There are tabs along the top of the page which can be used to find news in specific categories. This site is complete and user-friendly. http://news.excite.com/

Total News: This search engine provides links to several news sites, including CNN, CBS, MSNBC, USA Today, etc. It is easy to research specific topics using this search engine, and is pretty user-friendly. Also, the newslinks given are current (within the past two weeks). http://www.totalnews.com/

Image Search Engines

AltaVista Images: This search engine provides an overwhelming amount of images. It is easy to use by clicking on the “Image” tab at the top of the home search page; then the searcher is taken to a new search engine to search out many, many images. http://www.altavista.com/

Google Images: This search engine is great and easy to use for finding images on the internet. On the very first page, there is a link to “Images”, which can take the searcher right to a page to search for a particular image. An abundance of images can be found through this search. http://www.google.com/

Kid Safe Search Engines

Yahooligans: This is an excellent search engine for kids. It is very colorful and kid-friendly, and provides sites from a database of web pages designed for kids ages 7-12. Several links are provided along the side of the page for kids to follow their particular interests (jokes, animals, movies, etc.). http://www.yahooligans.com/

LycosZone: A great search engine for kids to use. There are links for homework help, and even links for teachers through this search engine. This search engine is very kid-friendly, and provides an adequate amount of information in any search. http://www.lycoszone.com/