{"id":89,"date":"2017-06-21T21:41:42","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T21:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/?page_id=89"},"modified":"2025-06-30T12:25:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T12:25:47","slug":"webtools","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/webtools\/","title":{"rendered":"Web Searching Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"

General Search Engines<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Name<\/strong><\/th>\nStrengths<\/strong><\/th>\nComments<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Google<\/a><\/td>\nSimple and straightforward, Google often provides a good list of relevant hits to your search. It also indexes PDF documents, Word documents, and PostScript files, blogs, YouTube, its ever-growing database of full-text books, and on and on and on.<\/td>\nA good place to start your Internet search.\u00a0 Google is often highly rated by users.\u00a0 It is one of the largest indexers of the Web.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Google Image Search<\/a><\/td>\nEasy and fast with excellent results. Clicking on an image shows the image and the page from which it came.<\/td>\nIf you are looking for images this is a great site to use.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Google Scholar<\/a><\/td>\nSearches \u201copen-to-the-free-web\u201d scholarly literature (papers, theses, books, articles, etc.). Provides access to some documents that are not indexed by databases.<\/td>\nOften does not link to the full text of articles, or requires a fee to link to full text. Try the advanced search tips.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DuckDuckGo<\/a><\/td>\nThis search engine’s claim to fame is that it doesn’t\u00a0track<\/a>\u00a0or “bubble<\/a>” users. It’s a tool that respects privacy and makes sure you see all relevant results, not just the results it thinks you want to see.<\/td>\nSearch results often contain “instant answers.” A\u00a0goodies<\/a>\u00a0service includes all sorts of special searches (calculations, conversions, dates, etc.)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Yahoo<\/a><\/td>\nYahoo has become a portal site – a home base for news, e-mail, weather, and consumer advice – as well as a search tool.<\/td>\nBest of the old “directory” style search engines. Subject-listed entries are selected by people and arranged by category.\u00a0 It is a good place to start a search.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AltaVista\u00a0<\/a><\/td>\nA huge index, like Google.\u00a0 Use the advanced search feature for best results. Good for searching various types of images.<\/td>\nAltaVista and Yahoo are owned by the same company, so you might lose track of where you are…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bing<\/a><\/td>\nMicrosoft’s addition to the list of search engines.<\/td>\nSearch results are broken down into categories listed on the left side of the page for easier topical searches.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/a>Collections of Selected Websites<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Name<\/strong><\/th>\nStrengths<\/strong><\/th>\nComments<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Sweet Search<\/a><\/td>\nSweetSearch is a custom search engine that searches just 35,000 expert-selected Web sites.<\/td>\nVery focused on the needs of students. First few hits bring together sources on a single subject. Each entry displays from 100-400 words of context around search terms.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ipl2<\/a><\/td>\nHighest quality sites are compiled by public librarians. Good, reliable descriptions provided for sites. This website is a merger between the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians’ Internet Index (LII).<\/td>\nHelpful for web research when you want sites that are considered authoritative and reliable.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Curlie<\/a><\/td>\nA human-edited directory of the Web which is constructed and maintained by a global community of volunteer editors. Previously known as the Open Directory Project\/DMOZ (defunct 2017)<\/td>\nNo ranking or promotion of websites. Open Source inspired, volunteer managed initiative (so quality may vary).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Internet Scout Project<\/a><\/td>\nThis directory (housed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison) has sites selected by professional librarians, educators and content specialists. Sites are screened for timely, accurate information.<\/td>\nThe quick search box is in the upper right hand corner. Be sure to explore advanced searching by clicking on the \u201cScout Report Archives\u201d link.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The lists in these tables are by no means exhaustive. They do represent a general consensus on what the helpful search tools are. If you are interested in finding out more about Internet search tools, check out the following links<\/p>\n