Internet Search

Search Engines
A Search Engine is a computer-generated index to websites, searchable by keyword.

Directories
A Directory is a list of websites, arranged in subject categories.

Hidden Web
How to find "hidden web" resources which cannot be found by the usual search engines.

 

Search Engines

A Search Engine is a computer-generated index to websites, searchable by keyword.

Google
Google is the most popular search engine today due to its proven quality of results. News and image search are two of its valuable extra features.
www.google.com.au

 

Yahoo!7
Yahoo!7 is the second major search engine, which also includes a large directory, a local search feature and its own premium content in news, entertainment and other popular search categories.
au.yahoo.com

MSN Search
MSN Search from Microsoft is the third most popular search engine today. Includes the Encarta encyclopedia.
search.msn.com

Ask.Com
Ask.com now incorporates the popular AskJeeves and Teoma services. Includes a dictionary, encyclopedia and other search types.
www.ask.com

Australian

Sensis
Sensis is owned by Telstra and offers a localised web search as well as the online phone directory.
www.sensis.com.au

Web Wombat
The original Australian search engine.

www.webwombat.com.au

Meta Search

DogPile
Dogpile returns the combined results from the Yahoo, Google, MSN and Ask search engines.
www.dogpile.com

Jux2
Jux2 sends your query to Google, Yahoo and MSN and compares the results obtained from each.
www.jux2.com

Vivisimo
Visisimo 'clusters' the results of your search to provide a more useful output.
vivisimo.com

Specialist

MedHunt
Search engine for medical research and development from around the world.

www.hon.ch/MedHunt

Scirus
Search engine for science.

www.scirus.com/srsapp

Singing Fish
Comprehensive search engine for audio, video and MP3.
search.singingfish.com/sfw/home.jsp

Directories

General Directories

A Directory is a list of websites, arranged in subject categories. A directory is a useful tool to give an overview of some the more useful and high quality web resources for a topic.

Google Directory
This extensive directory of websites is maintained by volunteers as part of the Open Directory project
www.google.com/dirhp

Librarians' Internet Index
A selective listing of web resources operated by the Library of California.
www.lii.org

Internet Public Library
Another select list of quality resources, from the Uni of Michigan School of Information.

www.ipl.org

Yahoo! Directory
Yahoo is the longest established web directory although it is now better known as a search engine and web portal.
dir.yahoo.com

Yahooligans
An abbreviated list of websites suitable for children.

www.yahooligans.com

Subject Gateways

A Subject Gateway is a portal to information that is usually limited to a specific subject area. The resources within the gateway are reviewed and evaluated by subject experts.

About.com
A collection of gateways, each maintained by a named subject specialist editor.
The editors also write their own articles to provide a well-rounded introduction to each subject.
www.about.com

National Library of Australia - Subject Gateways
A collection of Australian subject gateways.
Subjects include Australian literature and culture, science, law and public policy.
www.nla.gov.au/pathways/subject.html

Pinakes
A collection of international (mainly from UK) subject gateways.
Topics include business/economics, chemistry, engineering, health, hospitality and many more.
hw.ac.uk/libWWW/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html

WWW Virtual Library
The original academic web directory.
Each topic area is edited by a university specialist.
vlib.org

 

Hidden Web

The "Hidden Web" means Internet resources which cannot be found by the usual search engines, because they are within a database or on a password-protected site. Use these tools to find hidden web resources:

Magazine & Journal Databases
This page is a guide to journal databases which are free on the web.
Many subscription-only databases are also available through TAFE libraries, contact your local library for details.

Complete Planet
Discover over 70,000+ searchable databases and specialty search engines.
A comprehensive listing of dynamic searchable databases. Find databases with highly relevant documents that cannot be crawled or indexed by surface web search engines.
aip.completeplanet.com

Turbo 10
Search the Deep Net : Turbo 10 sends your query to over 800 specialist search engines.
turbo10.com

OaIster
Search for digital resources held across hundreds of university repositories.
oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister