Some search engines and search applications for doing your research

Anyone who is doing any kind of writing has to do his/her fair share of research to keep the content both current and relevant for the targeted audience.

Here below are some search engines and applications that can help you do this.

Kartoo -visual meta search engine- presents info. in flowchart form. The results can be personalized to show past searches, if you are willing to let Kartoo track such things.

Vivisimo Inc ( now Clusty)- Enterprise Search, Federated Search and Clustering .Each listing of this engine includes info. on how that site is ranked by mainstream search engines, such as Google, Lycos, MSN, and Looksmart. I like its layout , especially for news, health , blogs, and Wikipedia searches. I find the left-side clusters really helpful in targeting info. specifically to your topic search.

The Librarian's Index to the Internet contains info. you can trust. Its searchable directory only contains websites that have been personally approved by at least two librarians. Each listing is also annotated by one of these persons who felt it was worth including.

Freepint, maintained by librarian Gary Price, offers a portal into the invisible Web- hidden pages that are otherwise not visible on other search engines.

Open Directory Project (ODP) provides a free listing service, unlike some search engines that charge a fee for listings.

Topic- specific engines:

A good way to do a highly effective search that is customized to your topic is to try out topic- specific engines , such as the following:

1-Scirus is excellent if you are searching for scientific info.

2-Topix , created by the founders of the Open Directory Project, may be the Internet’s largest news site because it draws upon articles from more than 7,000 media outlets. However, it is mainly American based. For Canadian content, try www.topix.net/world/canada.


My personal favorites

Some of my personal favorites, but they are not heavy weight search engines like the ones previously mentioned, are the following:

www.webferret.com
www.alltheweb.com
www.teoma.com- now www.ask.com
www.inktomi.com- yahoo for small business
www.dogpile.com
www.search.com
www.altavista.com
www.mamma.com


www.theinvisibleweb.com features info. that is usually hidden from general search engines. This site, however, is quite complex in the choices it offers you so it will take some time on your part to see which feature best suits you.

Another personal favorite is www.copernic.com . There are various levels for this one… a free version and others you have to pay for. It is great for serious research.