Search Site:
How to search the net
- How to Search the Internet (basic)
- Top tips
- What to do if...
- UK Search engines
- Top 7 Search engines (probably)
- The ultimate list of Search Engines
There are 100’s of search engines on the net, some general, some specialist. What follows are some simple tips for searching and a comprehensive list of engines. The top 5 are listed first, but if that fails you, try some of the others. There are also a number of web archiving sites which archive old and dead sites. This can be useful for reference material if you know what the site used to be called. Try http://www.archive.org/index.php .
Top tips
- Use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches.
For example: +children -childcare
NO space between the sign and the keyword - Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, as a phrase.
For example: "Humberside federation"
Do NOT put quotation marks around a single word - Put your most important keywords first in the string.
For example: learning funding humberside - Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and upper case versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match.
For example: chairperson finds both chairperson and Chairperson - Use truncation (or stemming) and wildcards (e.g., *) to look for variations in spelling and word form.
For example: humb* returns humber, Humberside, humbrol etc.
For example: colo*r returns color (American spelling) and colour (British spelling) - You can combine any of the above.
For example: +partners +"voluntary sector " -children -hull
In this case, if you use a keyword with a +sign, you must put the +sign in front of the phrase as well. When searching for a phrase alone, the +sign is not necessary. - When searching within a document (web page) for the location of your keyword(s), use the "find" command in the browser.
- Boolean searches are often used on the internet. A Boolean value is a truth value; either something is true or it isn’t. Normally these are the expressions AND, OR, NOT (in capitals normally) which can be used in your searches.
For example: Humberside (voluntary OR community)
- Your search returns a thousands of hits
You probably typed only one term, and it was pretty common. Think of some synonyms. Try adding at least two more specific terms to your string. - Your search returns too few documents
You're probably searching in the wrong place or your search is too narrow. Maybe you didn't configure your search correctly. Maybe the information you seek isn't on the Web. Try omitting some of your search terms. Try your search on another engine. - Your search returns a "404 -- file not found" message
This message tells you that the file you seek has been moved, removed, or renamed. Go back to the search engine and do a phrase search or a field search on the title. Try shortening the URL to see if the file might still be on the same server. Try your search on Google or an archive site which maintain cached copies of pages. - Your search returns a "server does not have a DNS entry" message
This message tells you that your browser can't locate the server (i.e. the computer that hosts the Web page). It could mean that the network is busy or that the server has been removed or taken down for maintenance. Check your spelling and try again later. - Your search returns a "server error" or "server is busy" message
The server you are attempting to contact may be offline, may have crashed, or may be very busy. Try again later. - You can't find the home page for a well-known product or organization
Try guessing, experimenting with different top-level domain names by using the name, brief name, or the acronym. Many organizations use one of these in their URL. - If you are using FireFox as your browser or your browser is a recent Netscape upgrade, type in the word or phrase without anything else and, if Firefox or Netscape can, they will match it and take you to the site automatically.
UK Search Engines on one page.
Top 7 (but everyone has an opinion…) alphabetically
The comprehensive search engine list
AltaVista -Also offers translation. An AltaVista:UK site is available, and also a simplified graphic-free text search form interface InfoSeek -Owned by Disney. Average. Mirago, a search engine aimed specifically at UK businesses and families TheNet1 - Search.Com -CNET. Infoseek SE, own db for subjects. Web Direct - | AllTheWeb, this search engine lets you specify the type of search AllCrawl -"Why Choose, When You Can Have It All?" Ananzi, a search engine with a focus on South Africa ANZWERS Search Centre, a guide to Australian and New Zealand Internet resources Aussieseek, a search engine and messageboard service with a focus on Australia Dogpile, searches Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Excite, a search engine based in the US Fast Search: All the Web, All the Time, a search engine built to accommodate multimedia Go - an international web directory Godado - a UK and Europe search engine including a pay to promote facility HotBot (a Lycos site), a comprehensive index of the WWW . A UK HotBot site is available. Lookseek, a US-based search engine Lycos (UK site), search the database of Internet information resources (world-wide or UK and Ireland only) . The main Lycos site is in the USA. Mamma.com, a meta search engine that queries ten other search engines MetaCrawler, a search tool that queries other Web search engines NBCi -New respect for this search engine NorthernLight -Recommended, plus a special pay collection. -Recommended, plus a special pay collection.-Recommended, plus a special pay collection.Open Directory Project, a human-edited directory of the Web Search Europe, a search engine with a focus on European information SearchUK, a search engine with a focus on UK domains Searchy.co.uk, a metacrawler that interrogates 15 other search engines for UK resources Snap -Advanced setting allows excluding words, eg. xxx, porn, etc.. ToggleBot -10MM URLs. MetaSearch, Directory, Auction Search, etc.. WebCrawler, a database indexed by content of WWW pages WoYaa!, a guide to Internet sites in Africa Yahoo, a directory of Internet sites Search Engine Colossus, a directory of search engines in countries world-wide
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Virtual Riders, NBF, Second Floor, 94 Alfred Gelder Street, Hull, HU1 2AN