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Home / Search / Search Engines / When you in a hurry ... (Direct Hit Technology)

New search technology (e.g. Direct Hit or clustering search engines) provides highly relevant results for any Internet search. By analyzing the activity of millions of previous Internet searchers, this search procedure determines the most relevant sites for your search request.


First of all ...

Joe Barker and John Kupersmith, Library University of California, Berkeley: Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial. A Web searching tutorial featuring search strategies, tools, and website evaluation techniques. See especially:
! Search Engines. Comparison table of recommended search engines; how search engines work.

! Nancy Blachman: Google Guide. This is an online tutorial for all people who wanted more information about Google´s capabilties, features, and services. See also here (in German).

! idmoz:
Find the best websites for any topic or search or browse by category on I Dmoz Web Directory. This site aims to reflect the historical snapshot of the former DMOZ database. but is not affiliated with DMOZ.org or AOL.
Unfortunately showing invalide links.

! Startpage.
The world's most private search engine. Startpage.com delivers online tools that help you to stay in control of your personal information. Excellent!

! Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: List of search engines, and Web search engine.

! Alexa. Alexa provides several unique services and is a very powerful tool of viewing and comparing web site traffic for one site to the rest of the web.

! Entireweb. Entireweb, launched on April 7th 2010, aims to compete with the current leading search engines. It is a highly popular general purpose search engine used by millions of people around the world.
! Entireweb´s image search is the possibility to go directly to the source image from the search results page!

Gigablast. A powerful, new search engine that does real-time indexing. This serch engine offers a variety of features including topic generation and the ability to index multiple document formats (e.g. "type:pdf palaeobotany").

! Take Google, and Google Advanced Web Search. Results are delivered in order of importance and relevance. The heart of Google´s software is PageRank(TM), a system for ranking web pages. This fast search engine performs "and" queries by default, so it only returns those pages that include all of the search terms. You can also search by phrase with quotation marks ("like this"). Quick and precise. Excellent!

Lycos, and Lycos.de. Direct Hit results will appear under the "Popular" heading for the majority of searches.

! Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia:
Category:Academic publishing.
Category:Scholarly databases.
Category:Scholarly search services.
! List of academic databases and search engines.
List of online encyclopedias.

Home / Search / Search Engines / All in One Pages

Jennifer Laycock: Search Engine Guide. An educational web site about the search marketing world. Go to: Search Engines Directory. Internet search engines categorized by topics.

Professional Web Services, San Ramon, California: List of Search Engines Listed by Types of Searches.

St-Takla.org Free Online Services: Search engines on the Internet.

Robert Teeter's Home Page: Web Search Engines.

Home / Search / Search Engines / Metasearch Engines

Joe Barker and John Kupersmith, Library University of California, Berkeley: Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial. A Web searching tutorial featuring search strategies, tools, and website evaluation techniques. See especially:
! Meta-Search Engines.

Ask Jeeves. Allows you to search by asking a question in natural language syntax. Includes a knowledgebase and metasearch of a couple of search engines.

Dogpile. Provides access to approximately 20 search engines in the following categories: Web metasearch, Web catalog, Usenet, FTP, Biz News, and Newscrawler. Can restrict search by geographic area.

! MetaCrawler. Metacrawler simultaneously searches 12 of the Internet's leading search engines. Has the option to sort results by relevance, by source search engine, or by originating site. Excellent!

MetaGer (German pages). Comprehensive!

! Pandia (P&S Koch, Oslo, Norway). Pandia is a site devoted to effective Internet searching and search engine optimization. The Pandia Metasearch Engine lets you search the Web with some of the best Web search tools on the Net in one go, including search engines and directories like Yahoo! and AltaVista. This is a good option if you are looking for information on a clearly defined topic or term. The page also includes links to other metasearch engines and search tools.

! Startpage.
The world's most private search engine. Startpage.com delivers online tools that help you to stay in control of your personal information. Excellent!

ZapMeta. Metasearch tool, with site previews.

Home / Search / Search Engines / Search Engines sorted by Countries

! Bryan A. Strome: Search Engine Colossus. An international directory of search engines. Superbly done!

Excite
Excite Japan

Lycos
Europe:
Lycos Belgium
Lycos Denmark
Lycos France
Lycos Germany
Lycos Italy
Lycos Netherlands
Lycos Norway
Lycos Spain
Lycos Sweden
Lycos Switzerland
Lycos UK
Asia Pacific:
Lycos Japan
Lycos Korea
Americas:
Lycos Estados Unidos
Lycos Chile
Lycos Colombia
Lycos Mexico
Lycos Peru
Lycos Venezuela

Bryan A. Strome, Canada: Search Engine Colossus. Directory of sorted search engines by country or category.

YAHOO

Europe:
YAHOO Denmark
YAHOO Germany
YAHOO France
YAHOO Italy
YAHOO Norway
YAHOO Spain
YAHOO Sweden
YAHOO United Kingdom & Ireland

Pacific Rim:
YAHOO Asia
YAHOO Australia & New Zealand
YAHOO China
YAHOO Chinese
YAHOO Hong Kong
YAHOO Japan
YAHOO Korea
YAHOO Singapore
YAHOO Taiwan

Americas:
YAHOO Argentina
YAHOO Brazil
YAHOO Canada
YAHOO Mexico
YAHOO Spanish (South America)

Home / Search / Search Engines / Search for PDF Files and Online Magazine Articles

! arXiv, Cornell University.
arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for nearly 2.4 million scholarly articles.
Note the Wikipedia entry about arXiv.

Wendy Boswell, About.com: Find PDF Files on the Web.

! FreeFullPDF (developped by KnowMade SARL, a company specialized in the research and analysis of scientific and technical information).
The aim of FreeFullPDF.com is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific journals, theses, posters and patents. All scientific subjects are covered and all content are freely available in PDF format.
Search for paleobotany 2017.

Gigablast. A powerful, new search engine that does real-time indexing. This serch engine offers a variety of features including topic generation and the ability to index multiple document formats (e.g. "type:pdf palaeobotany").

! Google. For PDF search add "filetype:pdf" (without quotations) and your search string.

! Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), Hannover, Germany: Freie Alternativen zu zugangsbeschränkten Publikationen anhand des DOI finden. In German. Annotated links about unrestricted access to publications by means of DOI (Digital Object Identifier System).

Hot Neuron LLC.: MagPortal.com. This is a free web site that provides a full-text search engine for online magazine articles. You can browse through nearly 250 categories to find the most recent magazine articles and news feeds for your area of interest. Unlike general search engines which can take weeks to add a new page, new articles in MagPortal.com normally added within 1 business day of their publisher placing them on the net. Go to: Environment & Geology.

D. Lewandowski (2010): Google Scholar as a tool for discovering journal articles in library and information science. In PDF, Online Information Review.

! OpenAlex (made by OurResearch with support from Arcadia).
OpenAlex (launched in January 2022) is an index of hundreds of millions of interconnected entities across the global research system. Please note:
Open Access Basics: Was ist OpenAlex? In German, by Philipp Falkenburg, 2022.
Also worth checking out: Wikipedia information about:
OpenAlex, and its forerunners:
Live Search Academic (existed from April 2006 to May 2008).
Microsoft Academic Search (retired in 2012, relaunched in 2016 as Academic).

openpdf. This is a search engine and online viewer for ebooks in .pdf file format.

Quertime (a source for info and news in technology, social media, mobile, design and more):
! Top 25 Educational Search Engines for Students and Academic Researchers.

RapidLibrary. Search for Rapidshare-hosted files. (the filehosting site RapidShare is a hosting service for both free and commercial services).

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
! List of academic databases and search engines.

Home / Search / Search Engines / ftp-search

Ftpsearchengines.com

Global FTP Search Engine.

Mamont. One of the largest FTP search engines.

Metabear. ftp search.

Home / Search / Search Engines / Whois and IP Search

BetterWhois.com. A meta search for all domain registrars to find out who owns and administers a given Internet domain.

! NameIntelligence.com: Whois Report. This is a Domain Name Research Tool that allows wild card searches on all current and deleted domains. Search for domains using multiple keywords.

STEHR Online Kommunikation: Domain-Analyse (in German).

Network Solutions, Inc.: To search by IP address, type "host 121.23.2.7"

What is my IP Address?

Home / Search / Search Engines / Picture Search

! Entireweb. Entireweb, launched on April 7th 2010, aims to compete with the current leading search engines. It is a highly popular general purpose search engine used by millions of people around the world.
! Entireweb´s image search is the possibility to go directly to the source image from the search results page!

Excite Precision Search. Search for "Photos". First type your search terms in the Search box, then select "Zoom In" to see search suggestions.

! Google Image Search BETA. One of the most comprehensive Picture Search Engines on the Web. You also get access via the Advanced Search Page. See also here and there (The Google Images Help Website).

! Mineralienatlas (in German): Public Domain Bildquellen. A link directory of public domain picture resources.

! TinEye. This is a reverse image search engine. It finds out where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
! Public domain image resources.

Home / Search / Search Engines / Other specialized Search Engines

! arXiv, Cornell University.
arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for nearly 2.4 million scholarly articles.
Note the Wikipedia entry about arXiv.

! BASE. Created and developed by Bielefeld University Library, Germany (search technology provided by FAST Search & Transfer, Norway). This is a multi-disciplinary search engine for academically relevant web resources. Excellent!

Best of the Web Directory, Jericho, NY. Best of the Web (the Internet´s oldest directory) intends to remain at the forefront of the digital revolution by continuing to add new products and services that stay true to the company´s core mission of enhancing the online experience by providing the Internet community with meaningful guidance that it can trust. Go to:
Science: Earth_Sciences: Paleontology.
Science: Biology: Botany: Paleobotany.
Science: Biology: Botany.

BookRags. One of the largest student education websites. Enter any topic in the search box, and there´s a good chance to get quality information. Larger topics are discussed in depth, with resources including encyclopedia articles, critical essays, student essays, biographies, primary sources, interviews, and study guides.

! Europeana (Europeana is a thematic network funded by the European Commission). Europeana links you to books and other texts, as well as to images, sounds and videos. More than 4.6 million digital items.

Factbites (created by Rapid Intelligence, a content technology company based in Sydney, Australia). Factbites offers users meaningful, relevant sentences from every site in the search results.

GEIN, German EnvironmentalInformation Network (in German). The GEIN search engine consolidates a wide range of information currently distributed across many different Web sites run by public institutions in Germany, such as environmental authorities, agencies and ministries at the federal levels. It thus acts as an information broker for environmental information in Germany.

! Google Scholar: Just as with Google Web Search, Google Scholar orders your search results by how relevant they are to your query, so the most useful references should appear at the top of the page. Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.

! The Internet Archive, San Francisco: Its purposes include offering permanent access to historical collections that exist in digital format. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages.

! ISI Web of Knowledge (by Thomson Reuters). ISI Web of Knowledge is a research platform, helping you quickly find, analyze, and share information in the sciences. Go to: Access ISI Web of Knowledge. Now with conference proceedings. q

MuseumStuff.com (a product of Discovery Media, San Diego, California). Museumstuff.com is dedicated to creating a web based guide to museum related information. This information includes links to museum websites and virtual exhibits, educational and entertaining games and activities, and extensive learning resources concerning topics typically promoted through art, science and history museums.

National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), U.S. National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD: The Life Science Search Engine. See also here.

! NSDL Internet Scout Project (hosted by University of Wisconsin, Madison). As part of the NSDL project (National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library), the Internet Scout Project's NSDL Scout Reports offer high quality information about online resources. Go to: The Scout Report Archives. This is a searchable and browseable database to over nine years' worth of the Scout Report and subject-specific Scout Reports. A treasure chest of critical annotated and carefully selected Internet sites. See also: NSDL Scout Reports > Life Sciences.

! Semantic Scholar.
Semantic Scholar is a free, nonprofit, academic search engine from AI2 (Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence).

Prism-break.org. A web site for opting out of global data surveillance programs like PRISM, XKeyscore, and Tempora. Scroll down to:"Web Search". An alternative list of search enginges, with explanations.

RapidLibrary. Search for Rapidshare-hosted files. (the filehosting site RapidShare is a hosting service for both free and commercial services).

! Searchenginewatch. Search Engine Watch provides tips and information about searching the web. Go to: Specialty Search Engines (by Danny Sullivan). For those times when you want to find more than just web pages and web sites, some of the "specialty search engines" below will prove useful. They'll help you search through specific types of listings in different areas.

! Search Engine Watch. (part of the Contentive Media Group, Blenheim Chalcot).
Search Engine Reviews
Search Engine Resources. Worth checking out:
! How Chat GPT is changing SEO.

Used-line.com. A search engine for buyers of used, refurbished and surplus test and measurement, lab and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

U.S. Geological Survey, (a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Interior), Reston, VA: Search Engine. Topics are: "Biological Resources", "Earthquakes", "Fact Sheets", "Floods", "Jobs/Employment Opportunities", "Maps", "Minerals", "News Releases", "USGS Manual", "USGS by State", "Volcanoes", etc.

! Vadlo. Vadlo search engine caters to all branches of life sciences. It allows users to search within five categories:
Protocols (methods, techniques, assays, procedures, reagent recipes, plasmid maps, etc.),
Online Tools (calculators, servers, prediction tools, sequence alignment and manipulation tools, primer design etc.),
Seminars (powerpoint files for presentations, lectures and talks),
Databases (resources, compilations, lists etc.), and
Software (codes, scripts, algorithms, executables, downloadable programs).

! Wayback Machine, San Francisco, CA. Browse through 30 billion (!) web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. This public nonprofit Internet Archive was founded to build an "Internet library", with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. Excellent!

! Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
List of web browsers. List of search engines.
Web search engine.

Home / Search / Search Engines / Personal Agents

Copernic, Copernic Technologies, Inc. Sainte-Foy, QC, Canada. Fundamentally, Copernic Agent (all versions) is a meta search tool, capable of sending your query to multiple engines simultaneously. It comes in three versions: Basic, Personal and Professional. With costs, but SUPER-SEARCH THE WEB is free of charge. Copernic Agent Basic is a free toolbar for Internet Explorer. The toolbar itself plugs into your browser, and consists of a search form, a list of search sources, and a clickable icon that runs your search.

Data Village: Personal Search Agent 0.8. Freeware! Personal Search Agent searches the internet for web pages, based on seach criteria that you specify. But unlike a search engine, that searches copies of pages in previously created databases, Personal Search Agent actually retrieves a page right before processing it. This approach has many advantages over traditional search engines with often out of date and incomplete results.

Karnak. Karnak helps you find and accumulate a personal library of knowledge. It compiles information from multiple internet sources and providing you a summarized, condensed, and highlighted report. Karnak regularly updates you on the status of your research by email. Guest access is completely free!

Home / Search / Search Engines / Personal Search Engines

Tobias Goerke, stern.de: Die Spuren der Anderen im Internet. About people search and personal data protection (in German).

MetaCrawler.

Net Detective. Find people and perform background checks.

! Net-Trace: People Search Sites. A link directory. Search sites, resources, services, and tools that allow you to search for people and personal information.

ZabaSearch. Free USA People Search.

Home / Search / Search Engines / Search Strategies

Alexa (Alexa Internet, Inc., an Amazon.com Company). Alexa is a Web Information Company, perhaps best known for the Alexa Rank, the website ranking system which tracks over 30 million websites worldwide. See especially:
! The top ranked sites in category "Science".

! Warren D. Allmon Paleontological Research Institution, Ithaca, NY: Googling Turritella, or The Present and Future Value of the Web for Paleontological Research. Palaeontologia Electronica, Vol. 7, Issue 2. See also here (PDF file). A state of the art report of palaeontological search strategies.

! Joe Barker and John Kupersmith, Library University of California, Berkeley: Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial. A Web searching tutorial featuring search strategies, tools, and website evaluation techniques. See especially:
Search Engines. Comparison table of recommended search engines; how search engines work.
Subject Directories. Table comparing some of the best human-selected collections of web pages.
Meta-Search Engines.
Invisible Web. What it is, how to find it, and its inherent ambiguity.

N. Bakkalbasi et al. (2006): Three options for citation tracking: Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science. In PDF, Biomedical Digital Libraries. See also here.

! J. Bevendorff et al. (2024): Is Google Getting Worse? A Longitudinal Investigation of SEO Spam in Search Engines European Conference on Information Retrieval. See likewise here.
"... Many users of web search engines have been complaining in recent years about the supposedly decreasing quality of search results
[...] We monitored Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo for a year on 7,392 product review queries. Our findings suggest that all search engines have significant problems with highly optimized (affiliate) content ..."
Also worth checking out:
It's not just you, Google Search really has gotten worse. A new study by German researchers found that Google Search is plagued with SEO spam.
By Meera Navlakha, Mashable, January 18, 2024.

! Nancy Blachman: Google Guide. This is an online tutorial for all people who wanted more information about Google´s capabilties, features, and services. See also here (in German).

Wendy Boswell, About.com: The Invisible Web. How to find and search the invisible web. See also:
Invisible Web Directory.
The link is to versions archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Chip:
Alternative Suchmaschinen: Besser suchen ohne Google.
In German (by Marianne Westenthanner, March 2024).

B. Crew (2019): Google Scholar reveals its most influential papers for 2019. From Nature Index, a database of author affiliation information, collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 82 high-quality science journals.

Dorik (an all-in-one website building platform):
25+ Best Google Alternative Search Engines to Use in 2024. Looking for an alternative search engine to Google? Here are the 26 best alternative search engines you can use instead of Google.
By Zaki Rezwana Chowdhury, September 2024.

Faizan Fahim, Server Guy:
Best Google Alternative Search Engines to Use in 2020 (December 2019).

Forbes:
10 Alternative Search Engines To Use Instead Of Google.
By Barry Collins.

! K. Gilarski et al. (2020): Online-Quellen nutzen: Recherche im Internet. In German, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg.

Tobias Goerke, stern.de: Die Spuren der Anderen im Internet. About people search and personal data protection (in German).

! M. Gusenbauer and N.R. Haddaway (2020): Which academic search systems are suitable for systematic reviews or meta-analyses? Evaluating retrieval qualities of Google Scholar, PubMed, and 26 other resources. Open access, Research synthesis methods, 11: 181-217.

M. Gusenbauer (2019): Google Scholar to overshadow them all? Comparing the sizes of 12 academic search engines and bibliographic databases Free access, Scientometrics,118: 177–214.
"... By our estimation Google Scholar, with 389 million records, is currently the most comprehensive academic search engine ..."

! Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), Hannover, Germany: Freie Alternativen zu zugangsbeschränkten Publikationen anhand des DOI finden. In German. Annotated links about unrestricted access to publications by means of DOI (Digital Object Identifier System).

G. Keel et al. (2019): Recherchieren, Publizieren, Diskutieren: Ausgewählte Einblicke in den Social-Media-Alltag von Schweizer Journalisten. Google books, in German. IAM-Bernet Studie Journalisten im Web 2019 (Kölliken, buch&netz). See also here.

Jennifer Laycock: Search Engine Guide. An educational web site about the search marketing world. Go to: Search Engines Directory. Internet search engines categorized by topics.

Library, University of Leeds:
Literature searching explained. How to develop a search strategy.

D. Lewandowski (2010): Google Scholar as a tool for discovering journal articles in library and information science. In PDF, Online Information Review.

D. Lewandowski and P. Mayr (2006): Exploring the Academic Invisible Web. In PDF.

P. Mayr and A.K. Walter (2007): An exploratory study of Google Scholar. In PDF, Online information review.

P. Mayr and A.-K. Walter (2005): Google - wie tief gräbt diese Suchmaschine? PDF file, in German.

Alex Miller, Austin, TX: The Ultimate Student´s Guide to Search Engines. This SEO website covers a range of topics, including how search engines work and the history of search engines.

PC Magazine:
Go Beyond Google: The Best Alternative Search Engines for 2024.
By Michael Muchmore, August 14, 2024.

Lennart Pfahler, Die Welt, March 2019, (in German):
Die Wahrheit hinter der Suchmaschine, die besser ist als Google. Startpage better than Google!
Diese Suchmaschine ist besser als Google (March 2019). See also:
Stiftung Warentest, 26.03.2019: Suchmaschinen im Test: Eine schlägt Google.

Heiko Possel (2020): SEO Mythen. In German.

R. Pranckute (2021): Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The titans of bibliographic information in today's academic world. Open access, Publications, 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9010012.

Gary Price, Gary Price Research and Internet Consulting: Web Search Engines FAQS: Questions, Answers, and Issues. This article has useful advice on the features of the most commonly encountered web search engines, including Google, AllTheWeb, Altavista, MSN Search, Northern Light.

Professional Web Services, San Ramon, California: List of Search Engines Listed by Types of Searches.

Library, Reynolds Community College, Richmond, Virginia:
Online search strategies.

Burkhard Schröder, Germany: Recherche im Internet and Werkzeuge für die journalistische Recherche im Internet. Linklists (in German).

Schweizerisches Institut für Informationswissenschaft: Schweizer Portal für die Recherche im Internet (SPRINT). In German.
This expired link is still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.
See likewise "Tipps für die Recherche".

! Search Engine Watch. (part of the Contentive Media Group, Blenheim Chalcot).
Search Engine Reviews
Search Engine Resources. Worth checking out:
! How Chat GPT is changing SEO.

Submit Corner: Search Engine Overview. This guide documents what search engines look for when indexing, what to avoid, and other tips to help boost your rankings.

! Die Suchfibel. All about search engines (in German).

Aaron Wall: History of Search Engines: From 1945 to Google 2007.

Dale Vidmar, Hannon Library, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, Oregon: How to Search the Internet.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

VPN Mentor:
8 Best Private Search Engines in 2020 – True No-Log Services (January 2020),

Gabriele Weber, Wuppertal: Suchmaschinen Liste. News about search engines (in German).
Still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia:
List of academic databases and search engines.

! Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: World Wide Web,
Deep Web,
Web search engine,
List of search engines, and
Search engine optimization.

! Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia:
Category:Academic publishing.
Category:Scholarly databases.
Category:Scholarly search services.
! List of academic databases and search engines.
List of online encyclopedias.

Wintec Library, Hamilton, New Zealand:
Research Skills, Developing a search strategy.

! Wired:
The Internet Archive Is Making Wikipedia More Reliable. The operator of the Wayback Machine allows Wikipedia's users to check citations from books as well as the web (by Klint Finley, November 03, 2019).

Wired 2000 Corporation Inc.: Submit Corner. This website was developed with the goal of helping people optimize their rankings to the top of search engines. All about the techniques, tips, indexing strategies and gain the competitive edge you need in e-business.

Top of page Links for Palaeobotanists

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