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Writing from A to Z, The Easy-to-Use Reference Handbook
SEARCH ENGINES AND GENERAL SUBJECT DIRECTORIES
• Search Engines
Alta Vista. Large full-text search engine. Use to search for narrow, specific topics on the Web. Use Advanced Search to limit hits by date and relevance of key terms.
Google. Ranks web sites by link popularity, quality, and content. Use to locate good sites in response to broad, general searches.
HotBot. Easy-to-use advanced search feature, Search Smarter, allows you to search by date, by type of file (such as gif or jpeg), and by domain and to specify number of results and the size of descriptions.
Infoseek. Large full-text search engine. Ranks hits by relevance and searches for similar pages.
Northern Light. Searches not only the Web but also its collection of over 5,000 newswires and periodicals (full-text articles cost $1-$4 to access; article summaries are free). Search results are ranked by relevance and divided into Custom Search Folders.
• Subject Directories
Yahoo! A hierarchical subject directory with search capabilities. Yahoo! is the tool to use when you know what you’re looking for.
About.com (formerly The Mining Company). Subject sites created by experts rather than a webcrawler.
Britannica. A subject directory of Web sites recommended by Encyclopedia Britannica staff members. Not comprehensive enough for searches but can help you create a bookmark file with excellent links.
• Metasearch Engines
Dogpile. A metasearch engine that can search with over two dozen engines, three at a time. You can customize the order and the engines used.
InferenceFind. A metasearch engine that does parallel searches with half a dozen search engines and the clusters the results by source.
Ask Jeeves. If Jeeves can’t answer your question, scroll to the lower half of the page to see the results from several search engines.
• Comparing and Evaluating Search Engines and Web Pages
For links to and a comparison of seven of the most popular search engines, see The Spider’s Apprentice.
For quick advice (with links) about choosing the right engine for a particular job, see Nueva School’s Library Help page.
For links to several search and metasearch engines, subject indexes, newsgroups, and white and yellow pages, see Infomine’s Recommended Search Engines and Finding Tools.
For Web page evaluation, see Michigan State University Writing Center’s handy checklist.
For in-depth search tool analysis and updates, see Search Engine Watch.
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Copyright ©2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..