Library Home Page: Internet Search Tools: Search Engines

Search Engines use a bot or spider to crawl the web to find information matching your query. Although Google is a well-known search engine, keep in mind that no single search engine searches the entire web.

Search Engines

Search Engine Colossus
This site is actually a directory of search engines. Search engines are listed by country, which makes this a very useful source for finding an international perspective on issues.
Teoma
Teoma quickly returns hits and suggests how to refine your search term and links to expert resources.
Bing
A search engine developed by Microsoft offering a variety of search limiters including related searches, narrow by date, and narrow by result type. Additional search options are available under More.
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Some web search experts are saying that Bing is more powerful than Google. Try it out and see for yourself!
Get the Research
This search engine focuses on peer-reviewed, open access resources. It's a great tool if you don't have access to an academic database.

Private Search Engines

Search engines collect information about your search terms and the sites you visit. This information is then used to customize your search results and the ads you see. If you are concerned about search engines collection private information about you and your searches, the following search engines are considered "private" search engines and do not store cookies or other private information about you and your searches.

DuckDuckGo
Are you concerned about the private information collected about your searches? If you are, DuckDuckGo is for you. DuckDuckGo submits your search to Bing and then deletes the cookies from their server so that private information is not collected about you and your searches.
Gigablast
A search engine offering narrowed searches called Gigabits and providing an advanced search interface.
Yippy
Organizes search results by subject or type.
Startpage
Startpage describes itself as "the world's most private search engine." The search results are obtained from Google but private information about you is not collected.