The BEST Search Engines (according to UC Berkeley)

• google.com
  • (HUGE. Claims over 2 billion pages, but may be counting pages not fully indexed. Biggest in tests.
    General Web database with often useful ranking by popularity. Far from comprehensive, but often finds "the best" pages.)
• alltheweb.com
• (HUGE. Claims over 2 billion pages. Sometimes ties for first in tests.General Web database. Excellent ranking. Advanced search worth mastering.)
• teoma.com
• (LARGE.Try Teoma if:
  * You are looking for a specific site
  * Your topic consists of multiple ideas, e.g., drought in Ethiopia
  * You are curious to see what subtopics Teoma identifies for your search
  * You are looking for link collections on your topic
  * You want to compare Teoma results with results from Google.)
• altavista advanced
  • (LARGE. Claims to be the biggest also. General Web database. Use the Advanced Search with Boolean operators.)

Click here for more UCB information on the best search engines.

Other Search Engines (search engines are useful for different searches) Return to top.

• lii.org
  • Librarians' index to the internet; good list of subject headings also. Annotated subject directory of more than 10,000 inernet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to users of public libraries.
• metacrawler.com
• MSN Search
  • (Microsoft's Internet search service features the LookSmart web directory, international search sites, special features and links.)
• CNN.com
  • (Current and archived news.)
• 37.com (Access to 37 different search engines, including dictionary, encyclopedia.)

Quotations ( top)

• Bartleby.com
• ("Great Books online," poets, nonfiction.)

Specialized Search Engines ( top)

Maps:

• National Geographic Map Machine
• BigChalk
• Altapedia
• World FactBook Maps

Find a job or write a resume:

• jobstar.org

Something good to read:

• bookbrowser.com

• Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources
  • by Esther Grassian, UCLA College Library
• Evaluating Information Quaility on the Web - Top Ten Sites
• Evaluating Internet Resources
  • Web pages should be evaluated for both content and visual presentation. Content concerns the information that is presented on the page. Visual presentation reflects how a page looks.
• Bibliography on Evaluating Internet Resources
  • This bibliography has grown with the increasing number of documents which address the problems and issues related to teaching and using critical thinking skills to evaluate Internet resources.
• Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators
• Critical Evaluation Information
  
  Web evaluation activity (fake page)
  University at Albany
  State University of New York
  “Psychosocial Parameters of Internet Addiction”
  Rudolph G. Briggs, Ph.D.
  Department of Psychotechnology
  This Web page has been developed as an instructional tool, to encourage students to critically examine and evaluate the types of information that they may find on the Internet. Not all "facts" found on the Internet should be believed, and the items listed concerning Internet Addiction mix real and fake articles, research results and reports. This page is used during Internet instruction as a discussion starter for this very important issue. Additional information on the use of this Web page as a teaching resource, and on
  teaching students to evaluate Internet resources, is available in an article published originally in The Teaching Professor, Teaching Students to Evaluate Internet Sites.
  http://www.albany.edu/library/internet/addictions.html
  10. Library Selection Criteria for WWW Resources
  Carolyn Caywood c1995. http://www6.pilot.infi.net/~carolyn/criteria.html
  An early version appeared on page 169 of the May/June, 1996 issue of
  “Public Libraries.”
  http://www6.pilot.infi.net/~carolyn/criteria.html