Web Search Engines

There are a wide variety of search engines available for finding information about particular or general topics. Google is clearly the most used and exhaustive today. There are, however, others listed below that could also be used for a wide range of purposes.

The Search Engine Guide is a massive metasite with over two thousand annotated links on search engines, directors, indexes, portals, etc., arranged by subject heading, e.g., social science, arts, business. Here are some commonly used and/or interesting search engines.

Let's face it, in today's world everyone Googles everything, including crime. It is now a household term (and one found in most dictionaries). However, crime by definition requires law-breaking, so you have to have a law search engine. Unless you have Lexis-Nexis available to you, and many don't, most go to Findlaw.com. Beyond crime-is-what-the-law-"says" positivism (which many would disagree with), you're into subject oriented search engines about crime, which have to be organized in some way, such as The Redwood Highway (and you're there!). There are others, as noted on the last page of the Redwood Highway.

Here are some other search engines that are not necessarily so crime-related but are of interest nonetheless:

Goby a new and different kind of search engine that uses deep web technology to find new things to do in your free time (e.g., travel, events). You can type in your own words or use their cool subject guides. Interactive.
Congoo offers a new way of searching for information.
Rollyo gives you the opportunity to create your own search engine. That's rad.
PreFound.com. Great name for an engine that likewise builds on past human agency in creating searches.
FileDonkey.com says that their engine allows you to "find information about resources that are available in a number of networks. Our service can get you more results than using the search facilities of your specialised client software."
http://www.gigablast.com/. An up and coming search engine. Google probably can't buy this one out.
SCIRUS, kind of like Science-R-Us, but it's more than that, a science search engine produced by Elsevier. If you have access to a library with database search engines you should try it be SCIRUS, but this is a freebie for the world.
xrefer. A reference search engine that does meta-searches across encyclopedias, thesauri, dictionaries, books of quotes, and others.
IxQuick Metasearch. It seems to do a very good job.
Raging Search: Another very recent and very good search engine without tons of graphics, for fast loading.
Oingoß, which now has a Google logo.
Femina, a women-focused search engine.
WWWomen, ditto.
Librarians' Index to the Internet
Open Directory Project
ConsumerSearch.com, if you're a consumer this is the place to go to get evaluations of consumer products.
Yahoo
The BigHub is a multiple search engine, and it organizes hits by subdiscipline. You might compare it to Northern Light.
Northern Light, one of the grooviest search engines, especially for academics, combines free and fee cites.
Metacrawler. Another search engine, which combines the most popular search engines, allows usenet searches and removes redundant links.
ProFusion. This one omits redundant links, combines search engines, and permits boolean searches.
Langenberg.Com, a multiple search engine site that claims to be faster than others. It's useful because it includes web links to reference information (e.g., cooking, acronyms, dictionaries, encyclopedias, jobs, maps, etc.).
Webcrawler
Lycos
DejaNews. Has now morphed to Google.
Alta Vista.
Excite
Infoseek Guide--Now Go.com
HotBot
EZ-Find at The River
Galaxy
Reference.Com
Dogpile
Four11.com (Yahoo People Search)
Zip Code Search reverse search: Use SlapMap. If you want the location of an area code or zip code on a Map use iGoogle's free service.