Searching The Net

Helpful Strategies

If you're having trouble finding an item: Try searching for the plural form of the word. Try at least two search engines. Try putting phrases in quotes. Try using a hyphen to exclude a term (i.e. fruit baskets-wicker). Try using a + if the word must be included (i.e. +midwest weather). Be aware that not all search engines will make use of the quotes, hyphen, and plus signs.

If you're looking for the right word, One Look scans 743 online dictionaries all at the same time.

Search Internet for a dictionary with the word (Powered by OneLook® Dictionaries)

HINTS: Adding wild cards expands the search. (* = any number of characters and ? = exactly one character). For example, "tomo*ow", "tomo??ow" or "tomor*" will find "tomorrow".

The Free Dictionary is a combination dictionary, search engine, encyclopedia, almanac and more.

	Online Reference Dictionary, Encyclopedia & more
Word:
Look in:	Dictionary & thesaurus Computing Dictionary Medical Dictionary Legal Dictionary Financial Dictionary Acronyms Wikipedia Encyclopedia Columbia Encyclopedia
by:

SearchEdu has over 15 million university and education pages indexed and ranked in order of popularity.

20,000 links to every reference tool imaginable.	Alex Catalog of Electronic Texts is a collection of digital documents for literature and philosophy.
1 UP INFO combines a search engine, multiple research tools, and a full encyclopedia.	SCIRUS is a specific search engine for Science.

The Internet Open Directory Project is fairly new and very fast. Limited graphics and "just the facts" make this a new favorite.

Search Open Directory
Arts Business Computers Games Health Home News	Recreation Reference Regional Science Shopping Society Sports

The Columbia Encyclopedia is part of Bartleby.com, the most comprehensive set of reference tools on the Web.

Reference

Yahoo! is perhaps the best known of the Net's engines.

All The Web contains over 600 million full-text documents, with a multibillion catalog planned in the near future.

Google matches searches by the exact text you enter in the search window. The main site also has a "Feeling Lucky" button that takes you to the site Google thinks is the best one in your category.

Half Google and Half Yahoo side-by-side search.

New search technology -- semantic search. Supposed to "think" just like the human brain.

Vivisimo is the best new search engine on the Net. It not only retrieves webites related to your topic, but also categorizes them into more logical categories.

HOT BOT brings in results from the four biggest search engines and puts them in one neat package.

MONSTER CRAWLER zeros in on just the biggest search engines.

Monster Crawler - The Monstrous Search Tool

MonsterCrawler
Search all the major engines with just one click!

IXQUICK claims to be the world's most powerful metasearch engine.

TEACH-NOLOGY offers a lesson plans search for over 100,000 plans. Awesome teacher tool!

ALTA VISTA has expanded to offer a wide range of search options.

ASK lets you expand or narrow results for web pages.

InfoPlease is acts like an almanac for finding facts and information.

Answers.com delivers answers to questions, not just a list of links.

Power Reference

Online dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia and much more...

Elementary students may want to give these a try. They act just like "adult" search engines, except they're set up for kids (topics, categories, graphics, filters). You might also want to check out Child-Safe Searching on the Web.

More Search Engines

ASK A LIBRARIAN -- Live help from the Library of Congress.
NY TIMES CYBERTIMES NAVIGATOR -- Guide to useful research websites.
DOGPILE -- Searches several engines at once and brings back a "pile" of information.
ASK -- Formerly Ask Jeeves, it provides answers to questions.
SEARCH ENGINE COLOSSUS -- Takes you to search engines in 149 countries.
START SQUAD -- A listing of age-appropriate websites for elementary students.
INTERNET PICTURE DICTIONARY -- Search for pictures (in 5 languages).
GOOGLE MAPS -- Gives locations everywhere and shows satellite views.

To find answers to all your tech questions, try Help.com.