Search engines allow you to search for specific resources on the Internet.  To search most effectively, and find what you really want, it is important to do five things:

1. select the "right" search engine(s) for your needs (see below),
2. understand how each search engine operates - read the search tips and instructions,
3. select the best search terms and enter the terms correctly,
4. be persistent -- try terms and combinations until you get the kinds of results you want, and
5. try another engine if you need more results or are not finding what you want - no single engine lists the entire Internet.  

Choosing the “right” search engine - Some terms & definitions:

General Engines are major search engines which provide a way to search for internet web pages by terms, keywords and phrases. We currently consider Google and AllTheWeb to be the best #1 and #2 search engines. The Specialized Engines listed are major search engines which bring back results limited to information from certain kinds of sites, such as scholarly sources or U.S.Government info.

Subject Directories are an easy and effective way to search the Internet. They list websites by topical categories, and organize these categories by subjects. The general directories listed here will lead you to more subject-specific directories about individual topics.

Quick Facts search on distinct concepts or ideas such as search engines and returns results that explain the meaning or use of the term or idea. It’s best to use these if you’re looking for definitions or encyclopedia-like explanations.

Meta or Clustering Search Engines quickly search sets of selected individual (other) search engines simultaneously and group the results of your searches by similar topics, returning them as lists of results as well as graphical representations. A combination of specific search of a search engine along with the browse-ability of a subject directory, this is a useful way to search on broad topics so that you can see an overview of themes within your subject area.

Guided Search allows you to perform more advanced searching on the General Engines. Need to cut your results from the millions down to hundreds but don’t understand Boolean logic or all the specialized shortcut symbols? You don’t have to!

Finding Music/Internet Radio/Media Files or other special content - Information is stored in many formats that information is stored, whether it be as a webpage in HTML, in a .wav file, or on video and you can find many of these on the Internet. Try these engines and services for faster and more specific results.

Find (we)Blogs - A weblog, or blog as they are more commonly known, is a website that uses a journal/diary format to present information. Many are full of personal information about individuals, but there are an increasing number that are being used by educators and professionals as a way to communicate and share ideas about research and interests. (Read more here…)

Find Acronyms - WYSIWIG? ICE? ISP? What do all those letters mean? An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of a series of other words. It usually creates a word from the first letter of each word within the phrase. An example of this is: AIDS used in place of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

Social bookmarking is a lot like sharing your list of bookmarked sites with friends. It allows Internet users to collect, sort, update and share their favorite websites and web resources with other Internet users. Social bookmarks can be related to anything you find interesting or useful, and most sites allow you to make your lists public or private.

Podcasts are audio files that can be downloaded, usually in MP3 format, to media players or computers for digital playback whenever it is convenient. Podcasts are so popular and portable that content covers everything from news and business to music, entertainment, sports and more.

Tag: A word used to describe an item such as a book or blog entry.

Tag Cloud: A group of tags that shows what words are used most frequently - the bigger a tag is, the more popular it is.