Useful Search Engines
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Most users want a single search engine that delivers three key features:
- Relevant results, things you are actually interested in.
- Uncluttered, easy to read interface.
- Helpful options to broaden or tighten a search.
Here are some recommendations
Some you will have heard of and some will probably be new to you
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Google is the undisputed king of search engines. It is fast, relevant, and the largest single catalogue of Web pages available today. Make sure you try the Google 'images', 'maps' and 'news' features... they are outstanding services for locating photos, geographic directions, and news headlines. |
Yahoo! is several things: it is a search engine, a news aggregator, a shopping centre, an emailbox, a travel directory, a horoscope and games centre, and more. This is a very helpful site for Internet beginners. |
Bing is Microsoft's attempt at unseating Google. Bing used to be MSN search until it was updated in summer of 2009. Bing is not dethroning Google in the near future, but is definitely worth trying. |
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The Ask Jeeves search engine has been around a long time. The presentation is clean and easier to read than Google or Yahoo! or Bing, and the results groups seem to be more relevant. |
Years ago, Dogpile was the fast and efficient choice but Google came along and Dogpile faded into obscurity. If you want to try a search tool with pleasant presentation and helpful crosslink results, definitely try Dogpile.
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DuckDuckGo has some slick features, where all your answers are found on the first results page. DuckDuckgo offers disambiguation prompts which helps to clarify what question you are really asking. And the ad spam is much less than Google.
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The Internet Archive has also been around for a long time. It has been taking snapshots of the entire World Wide Web for many years. You won't visit the Archive daily, like you would the others, but when you do have need to travel back in time, use this search site. |
If you are searching for obscure hobby interest blogs, obscure government information, tough-to-find obscure news, academic research and otherwise-obscure content, then Yippy is your tool.
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Webopedia is absolutely a perfect resource for non-technical people to make more sense of the computers around them. It is an encyclopedic resource dedicated to searching techno terminology and computer definitions.
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Portal featuring compact, easy-to-use lists of useful sites. It does what it says on the tin. |