Internet Information Searches
(or search just this site for a particular word or phrase)
How To Effectively Search
Searching the internet is both a science and an art. Any fool can strike a "search-engine"
page and enter something and get some sort of result, but you won't get good
results unless you have some idea what you're doing. Here, under All About
Searching, you'll find links to pages that will tell you a lot about what to do and how
and why to get best results, and they each repay reading.
Search Types:
While the sites linked under All About Searching will in many cases lead
you on to a plethora of search sites, we have provided here quick starting points for the few
places that seem to be the best, at least for generalized searches.
Engines--
Google
Alta Vista
Encyclopedia Britannica
Deja News
Directories--
Oingo
Yahoo
Hybrids & Meta-Searchers--
Ask Jeeves
Ixquick
CUSI
W3 Search Engines
Gateways
(stand-alone major resources)
People/Business Finders (addresses, e-mail, telephone numbers, etc.)
other site pages--
general internet resources
Washington State
eastern Washington
Adams County
Ritzville
Othello
Washtucna
Benge/Cunningham/Hatton/Lind
search this site
news & notes
Interested in things to do with Washington State? Check out our
"Washington State" books bookshop
All the search engines and meta-sites and whatnot in the world won't help you find what you
want or need to know if you do not first have a good idea which can do what, how, and how
well. The sites linked below are a selected group to help you better understand which tools
to use and how to best use each. (There is not some one search site or method that works
equally well for all purposes!)
Be keenly aware that articles that get specific about search sites are likely to be nearly
useless if more than a year old, and are suspect even if just six months old. This is a
very fast-changing world.
What we recommend is that: 1) you read the articles linked below, to be sure you know how to
use each service in the most effective way; then, 2) try each of the services with several
queries, each of not only a different subject but a different type (get very specific
information on a narrow subject, look for general leads on a subject you know little about,
and so on). See which ones work best for you and your needs and preferences.
Search Tools:
(This site, which has some useful information, is in process of being revised, but is
worth looking in on even now.)
Search-Engine Guide:
a must-read gateway page to vast amounts of information to help you select the best tool
for the job; it will allow you to penetrate the "mysteries" a deal deeper than the fine
introductory site listed just above.
Understanding And Comparing Search Engines:
a gateway page to numerous articles on the general subject.
Web Searching, Sleuthing And Sifting--A Tutorial:
mainly for beginners.
Searching Data Resources :
a nice discussion of how best to structure database inquiries.
Boolean Searching:
"Boolean" (after English logician George Boole) logic is a way of combining words and
phrases, and to do effective searches you really need to understand it; this page will
give you detailed but quite clear information, and has descriptions of the modes of
operation of the major search engines.
Secrets Of Search Engines:
knowing how they work helps immensely in using them wisely.
Specialized Searches:
a list of search engines that are designed for particular purposes--that is, to find
specialized kinds of information (but this site also list general-purpose engines of
many kinds).
Search-Engine Watch:
all kinds of extremely useful (and often amusing) information about search engines.
Google has now achieved the status of being most people's first choice for searching, and with
good reason. It gives strongly relevant results, it has more pages, it is fast, it does not
sell listing priority, and it "caches" copies of pages so you can see what it found even if
the actual page has since disappeared or changed.
Type in your search terms then click the Google button.
Or instead search:
via Google "Advanced" Search.
Or get some help for Google searches.
Alta Vista, once the champ but now a distant secpnd to Google, still has its uses--mainly
because it allows somewhat more precise search terms (Google, for example, does not accept
wildcards).
Type in your search terms then click the Alta Vista button.
Or instead search:
via Alta Vista
"More precise" Search
Or get some help for Alta Vista searches.
Yes, the famous encyclopedia, all of it, on line for free.
Set up your search then click the Britannica button.
(Use any or all of the four available fields--but leave any unused ones blank.)
Deja News was (see the note just below) an easy web-based connection to the wealth of
information, fun, and general weirdness of "news groups"; you could turn up articles on almost
anything up to and including the kitchen sink (and you generally can get more realistic and
down-to-earth personal information on usenet than from any number of web pages).
Deja News' usenet portion has recently sold to Google, the search engine; for now, the
transition is still in progress--only limited searches are possible, threading is still rather
crude, nno posting--but all should be straightened out soon. Stay tuned: this could
be a big plus, as Deja had been getting less and less competent. Google promises to re-expand
the archive to its full size, years and years of messages, whereas Deja had for long been
limiting it to the 18 months or so.
(The searches below will work.)
Type in your search terms then click the Deja News button.
Or instead search via
Deja News "Advanced Search."
Or get some
help for Deja News searches.
Oingo is very nicely organized by subject, with a clear "tree" structure. Like Yahoo, below,
they break web sites and pages down into various deeply indexed categories, making finding
things relatively easy. A search is a good way to get started, or you can just go to
their front page and start going through the many categories.
Type in your search terms then click the Oingo button.
Or get some tips on Oingo searching.
Yahoo is another major resource for web directories. They break web sites and pages down
into various deeply indexed categories, making finding things relatively easy. A search is a
good way to get started, or you can just go to their front
page and start going through the many categories.
Type in your search terms then click the Yahoo button.
Or instead search:
via Yahoo "Advanced" Search."
Or get some help for Yahoo searches.
Unlike individual search engines and directories, meta-searchers do not have their own databases
and they do not classify or review web sites; instead, they send queries simultaneously to
multiple other search engines or directories and report the results to you.
"Ask Jeeves" is not the best metasearcher in any one way, but it has the advantage of being
easy to use and understand, making it well suited for kids or those who neither have nor want
to acquire much technical expertise.
Type in your search terms then click the Ask Jeeves button.
Or get some help
for "Ask Jeeves" searches.
Ixquick seems to have supplanted Metacrawler as the optimum metasearch engine available today.
SearchIQ (ZiffDavis) says: "Currently the default search engine on our browser."
Ixquick is, for one thing, quite fast; moreover, it ranks findings by relevance and showsn from
which of the 14 engines it searches a hit came. It is currently one of the few metasearch tools
that support regular searches, natural-language searches, and advanced boolean searches,
and knows which engines can handle which types of searches. If a page is listed
in more than one search engine, Ixquick tells you which engines and how it was ranked.
Select your search target, set up your search, then click the Ixquick button.
Or get some help
for Ixquick searches.
"CUSI" is the Configurable Unified Search Interface
website. It is like an expanded version of this page, providing access from one place to a
number of search resources of various types. Because it is itself an interface, we here provide
just this link to the site.
The W3 Search Engines site is a huge yet
handy collection of search engines of all kinds, nicely categorized. It provides, much as we
do, "front ends" for direct entry to the larger ones. It is especially useful if you need to
find relatively obscure material (need a list of internet motorcycle-related sites? or a portal
to Greek information?). Because it is itself an interface, we here provide just this link to
the site.
"Gateways" as we use the term are not exactly search engines (or directories), but rather are
sites with an especially large amount of general information--research tools unto themselves.
The World Wide Web Virtual Library:
a massive on-line library--like a "super-encyclopedia" (it's not a single work but a
collection of edited links lists).
The Internet Public Library:
simply put, a tremendous resource.
The Free Internet Encyclopedia:
yet another wonderful resource.
Itools:
another great gateway to a host and variety of useful internet services.
Note: their major site revision on 2/28/02 has some bugs, presumably transient.
Reference Links:
links to sites with library-type tools available.
The Columbia Encyclopedia:
on on-line version with cross-links and lookups.
Miscellaneous Reference Sites:
a handy list of usual and unusual (from Native American sites to a registry of speed traps)
web reference sites.
Whether you want to find particular persons or business, or businesses of a certain kind, or
addresses (physical or e-mail) for people and businesses you know, or telephone numbers, or
any similar sorts of things, the links below should help. Despite their claims, none of them
are complete in any way (much less every way), so if you really need the information, try
them all in turn.
Any Who
Switchboard
Who Where?
Bigfoot
Usenet E-Mail Search (addresses derived from postings)
Yahoo People Search (formerly Four11)
Infospace
Zip 2
Internet Address Finder
Canada 411
Click on this organization chart
to return to the page-topics list.
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