Searching is complicated
task that involves a combination of investigative techniques, problem
solving, common sense, and browsing. The largest and best search engines
/ directories are Google, Yahoo,
WiseNut, AllTheWeb,
Northern Light, AltaVista,
Hotbot, MSN
Search, and Temoa. Some of the
better alternative search engines include Day
Pop (for news), Find Sounds,
Vivisimo, The
Internet Public Library, and The Open
Directory.
Much of the information
on the Web is not available through search engines. Bright
Planet estimates that there are over 550 billion documents or web
pages on the Web. Google (the largest search engine) can access about
2 billion web pages. To complicate matters much of the content available
on the Web is only available on request. These database web sites are
being archived by Bright Planet's Complete
Planet, Invisible Web.com
and Web Data.com.
Several organizations
provide search strategy tutorials online.
A comprehensive
guide to search engine is available at Search
Engine Showdown.com