Searching Web Resources

The history of directories and searching services is a fast-moving one. Since 1994, when Yahoo! was only a list of its founders' favorite Web site bookmarks arranged into categories, directories and search engines have continued to be introduced (or reintroduced) with larger databases, more searching options, and more "intuitive" software and searching algorithms.
Fortunately, the same Web you search is the place where improvements, new partnerships, and new technology in searching are announced, discussed, and reviewed.
Searching Search - Services
Here are some resources you can use to stay current long after you complete this course. You may want to bookmark them (or add to Favorites) for future reference.

One way to find more directories and search engines is to just search for them! Try it. One search engine won't keep you from finding references to others, or to sites with lists of links to a number of searching sites. The most popular search services are always advertising. It's easy to find them. But there are lesser-known, smaller ones that may have found and indexed sites or documents that may be the ones to match what you are looking for even one, for example, that only catalogues universities' archives of historic documents. Most of what you need to find day-to-day can be found in the larger search services--but if they don't have what you need, don't hesitate to search for ones that do.
Search as a service is a branch of software as a service (SaaS), focussed on enterprise search or site-specific web search.

Searching is an important part of any business database function, either through internal databases, internal document stores, or through the content of a website. This is needed for both internal company staff and for external customers. Although a simple database query such as "List existing customers with a postal code for Argleton" is a trivial piece of in-house software development, probably through SQL, this is a simplistic example. More complex searches such as "Find all product brochure text that references the Bindeez product" or "Search the customer-uploaded reviews for any synonyms of 'caught fire' and 'pets' or 'children'" are more difficult to implement. Search, especially free text search or text searching through images of scanned documents, is a specialist discipline.

No matter how many search services are included in this course, some have been left out. You may find a new favorite among those that did not appear. Here are several sites where you can view and try out other directories, search engines, and metasearch engines:

1. Start Page
2. Search Engine Watch

If you are the type of searcher who wants to take advantage of every searching "trick" and technique, the following Web sites maintain links to articles on just this topic, as well as other articles related to overall search strategies, such as which search service is best for finding particular categories of information:

1. The InFoPeople Project

Determining which directory or search engine is "the best" is difficult to do, and depends on who you ask and what you ask about, especially if you ask each of the major searching services. You can rank them by the size of the database, numbers of pages visited or indexed, or daily number of searches performed. If you'd like to know how your favorite rates against the others, either of these sites can give you some statistics:

1. Search Engine Watch's Ratings, Reviews and Tests

Click the Exercise link below to use searching resources on the Web to locate a new search engine or find out more about the one you use.
Searching Resources - Exercise