NOTE: As it becomes easier to find increasing amounts of information on the Internet, the evaluation of the information becomes more and more crucial. Anyone, regardless of expertise or knowledge, can post information on the Internet. Web sites vary greatly in theirpurpose, content, authenticity, objectivity and accuracy.
Please see the Library's Guide to Evaluating Internet Sources for evaluation criteria.
| Search Engines | Meta Search Engines | Subject Directories | Search the Deep or Invisible Web |
Learn About Searching the Web |
Evaluate Information Found on the Web |
| SEARCH ENGINES Use to locate information on a specific topic. Search by subject keywords or phrases. |
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| Good general search engine. | |||
| Good general search engine. | |||
| One of the largest indexes. Provides cached copy of page if no longer available.Searches .pdf files | |||
| Specialized science search engine. Searches for reports, articles and scholarly web pages. | |||
| Provides recommendations for refining your search and other resources. | |||
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| META-SEARCH ENGINES Search a number of search engines at the same time and combine all the results in a single listing. Useful for very specific or obscure topics. |
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| Searches up to 13 search engines, including .pdf files. | |||
| Searches multiple engines for web sites, news, web blogs and software. | |||
| Select collected search engines and subject directories by category for deeper searching. Also searches .pdf files. | |||
| Results are automatically clustered | |||
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| SUBJECT DIRECTORIES Use to browse the Web by general topics. Directories classify selected Web resources by categories and subcategories. Some offer reviews or evaluations of sites. |
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| Good general web directory. Includes both commerical and academic web sites. | |||
| INFOMINE provides a subject directory of selected links to academic resources on the Internet, including databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, listservs, online library card catalogs, articles and directories of researchers, etc. | |||
| Well organized, reviewed and annotated subject directory. | |||
| High quality guide. Web sites selected by volunteer experts in various subject areas. | |||
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| SEARCH THE "DEEP WEB" or "INVISIBLE WEB" Search the content of web-based databases and directories; also text and non-standard files such as multimedia and .pdf files. These types of web resources are not likely to be retrieved by traditional search engines and directories. |
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| Provides searchable access to thousands of web databases. Summaries from retrieved sites are included. | |||
| Users can search selected categories of engines and subject directories. Also searches .pdf files on the web. | |||
| Guide describes the Deep Web and how to search it. From University at Albany Libraries | |||
| Browse through 30 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago | |||
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| LEARN ABOUT SEARCHING THE WEB EFFECTIVELY | |||
| An online tutorial on searching the web. | |||
| From the University of Albany - a useful guide that categorizes search engines and directories according to how and what they search.. | |||
| The User's Guide to Web Searching - Compares and evaluates many different search engines. | |||
| Provides tips and information about web searching. | |||
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| EVALUATE INFORMATION FOUND ON THE WEB | |||
| From the Medaille Library Research Guide | |||
| MedlinePlus Guide to Healthy Web Searching | Ealuating health and medical information found on the web. | ||
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