Popular Search Engines:
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This guide is separated into the following categories:
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About this Guide
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What you should know about this web page
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General
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Tools that will return information on almost any topic
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Bio-Medical
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Engines designed to return bio-medical information only
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Metacrawlers
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Search tools that query many search engines at once
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Tutorials:
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Tips for using search engines to get the best possible results
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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.
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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.
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Google Groups
Formerly Deja.com. Allows searching of Usenet news groups by keyword,
author, forum, date and subject.
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Library Spot
A portal site offering access to electronic reference sites along with
feature articles, and searching tutorials.
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Yahoo
Pioneer of organizing the web into searchable categories. Categorizing is
done by people instead of computers.
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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.
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MedHunt
Suggests alternate spellings in several languages for misspelled terms.
Searches human reviewed sites and computer indexed sites.
Help
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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.
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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.
Tutorials
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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.
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Basic Internet Searching
New to Internet searching? Start Here. Features interactive examples.
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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.
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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
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