Search Engines

Search engines allow you to search for specific keywords or phrases appearing on various places within the engines database of WWW sites. Some important things to keep in mind when using a search engine also included in this site are some general tips for using search engines. There are many different search engines available but here are some general characteristics to keep in mind:
* SIZE & STYLE
Search engines vary in database size and manner of searching. Reading the available help information will help you to become more familiar with how in individual search engine works.
* RANKING SYSTEMS
Most search engines will rank the output of searches but not all engines rank the same.
* LAG TIME
Search engines are not generally the best way to find current news
* APPROPRIATENESS
The database size for search engines ranges from 1 million to over 1 billion, which can make finding that one specific document difficult. Consider other tools which are designed to help you find specific types of information such as a company homepage or current news.

Major Search Engines

* Google
* AltaVista
* Teoma
* Lycos
Metasearch Engines
Sends search to several search engines

* Dogpile
* Kartoo
* Metacrawler
* Vivisimo
Anne Scholz-Crane and Ka-Neng Au, 3 May 2005