The Web is growing at such a rate that no search engine, not even Google, can search the entire Web. As the Web grows and different technologies come into existence, it becomes increasingly useful to have a whole range of search tools in your bag of tricks. Remember, each search engine uses its one search algorithms (rules), so trying more than one search engine will help you see pieces of the Web that you may miss if you just stick to one search engine. Here are a few to send along and try out.
General Search Engines
- Ask: hardly a “new” search engine, and with its marketing, you may know this one. Ask works to provide many cool add ons that are worth checking out.
- Gigablast: Their “freshness” dating helps ID how long content has been on the Web.
- Clusty: Clustered results help organize and lead to other sources.
Meta Search Engines: These are tools that search multiple search engines, so that you can jump between them and compare results.
Specialty Web Tools
- Flashearth: This one is cool. You can search a number of different geo tools (like Google maps) at once. You can then select from different images and maps depending on what you need.
- BookSearch x 3: Search the three big book search tools at once (Google, Amazon, MSN)
Thanks to Greg Notess for discussing these resources on his blog and at the recent Computers in Libraries conference.