Library of the Health Sciences - Urbana

Popular Search Engines:

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This guide is separated into the following categories:

About this guide

This guide is a group of search utilities selected by the staff of the Library of the Health Science-Urbana. This is not a complete list of all search engines available. This site exists to help our users select a search engine that will be most likely to return useful information.

Most sites listed are reviewed by Search Engine Watch or Search Engine Showdown. Favorable reviews, lack of overlap with other search engines, popularity, and unique features were qualities used as selection criteria. Sample queries were also posed to each search engine considered as part of the selection process. Sites that performed badly on sample queries were not included.

General

These sites return results from a wide range of sources. Some sites are set up to return information from certain sources, while others check the entire web. Please check the help file for each engine to learn how to use its special features, as each one works differently. You may also want to see a Tutorial to learn basic or advanced skills. Please remember that information on the Web is not always reliable, and all materials found on the Web should be evaluated.

• Google
  Uses a unique ranking system to generate more relevant hits. Also allows searching of only government (.gov) sites. Now includes a web directory and capability to search within a portion of the directory.
• Google Groups
  Formerly Deja.com. Allows searching of Usenet news groups by keyword, author, forum, date and subject.
• Library Spot
  A portal site offering access to electronic reference sites along with feature articles, and searching tutorials.
• Yahoo
  Pioneer of organizing the web into searchable categories. Categorizing is done by people instead of computers.
• Other human generated web indexes: looksmart, Open Directory

Bio-Medical Search Engines

These engines search only medical sites to eliminate non-medical hits. Please check the help file for each engine to learn how to use its special features, as each one works differently. You may also want to see a Tutorial to learn basic or advanced skills. Please remember that information on the Web is not always reliable, and all materials found on the Web should be evaluated.

• MedHunt
  Suggests alternate spellings in several languages for misspelled terms. Searches human reviewed sites and computer indexed sites.   Help
• Medical World Search
  Searches a selected list of 100,000 sites to reduce non-relevant hits. Registered users can keep a search history. There is a fee to become a registered user.   Help   Additional help on main search page.
• MedWeb @ Emory University
  Large searchable database of internet health resources maintained by the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library of Emory University.

Metacrawlers

These sites run your search on several different engines at once. Please check the help file for each engine to learn how to use its special features, as each one works differently. You may also want to see a Tutorial to learn basic or advanced skills. Please remember that information on the Web is not always reliable, and all materials found on the Web should be evaluated.

• Ask!
• Clusty
• Dogpile
• Fazzle
• KartOO
• Mamma
• Metacrawler
• SurfWax
• Webcrawler

Tutorials

• Bare Bones (University of South Carolina Beaufort Tutorial)
  The University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB) maintains a Bare Bones tutorial entitled "Bare Bones 101: A Basic Tutorial on Searching the Web." USCB's Bare Bones include twenty lessons on searching the Web. Each lesson focuses on a different aspect of searching the web or on how to use a specific search engine. Users may take a quick lesson to enhance knowledge of a particular aspect of searching or go through all of the Bare Bones lessons in sequence.
• Basic Internet Searching
  New to Internet searching? Start Here. Features interactive examples.
• NoodleTools
  NoodleTools' guide helps searchers "Choose the Best Search Engine for Your Information Need." In addition, NoodleQuest is an interactive guide that performs much the same function. Both NoodleTools "tools" have been developed to lead users to the search engine that will yield the most productive results.
• Search Engine Watch (Web Searching Tips)
  Search Engine Watch dedicates an entire section of its site to Web Tips including pages such as Search Engine Math (explaining use of simple commands to improve results), Power Searching for Anyone (summary of advanced searches in sundry search engines), and Boolean Searching (guide to the use of Boolean operators).

Don't see your favorite search site listed? Contact LHS-Urbana