Internet

Search Engines

Our Recommendations - Only the Best!

To make your searching more successful use the Advanced Search options of your chosen Search Engine.

Google Our top choice for web searching. Becomes a NZ search engine when you click the "pages from New Zealand" button.

Google Images The best image search engine for the web.

Google Suggest Worth a try! Suggests other key words as you type.

Clusty "A new way to search the web" - the clustering search engine. Clusty queries several top search engines, combines the results, and shows these as clusters. Previously called Vivisimo.

Quintura A Visual search engine. Your search is shown as links and a "cloud tag", which can help you narrow your search to exactly what you want. Take the "Tour" shown on the site homepage.

Yahoo One of the first and still very strong.

Ask Search with keywords or questions to deliver "fast and relevant information". Search results can be further narrowed or expanded.

AllTheWeb The focus is on web searching, but news, pictures, video, & Audio searches are also offered.

 

Metasearch Engines

These search with several search engines.

Dogpile Searches "all the best search engines, all rolled into one, including Google, Yahoo! and Ask".


Clusty Not only lists organised responses from major search engines, but also automatically organize the pages into categories.

Kartoo If you like the idea of seeing your web results visually, this meta-search site is for you.

 Mamma "The mother of all search engines", Mamma simultaneously searches a variety of engines, directories, and deep content sites.

 Metacrawler Returns "the best results" from Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, About, LookSmart.

 

Subject Directories

Links and information selected by specialists and experts in their fields.


Yahoo Directory A list of web sites that have been reviewed and approved by a human editor. The oldest, and still a good one.

 Librarians' Index to the Internet An excellent directory of web sites reviewed and evaluated by professionals. Well worth a look.

Infomine A virtual library of scholarly Internet resources, librarian-built from the University of California.

About.com A powerful network of 475 Guides, "experts in their field" provide quality information through this directory.

Internet Public Library Library services to Internet users provided by the University of Michigan School of Information.

Subject Finder Designed to search only educational websites which contain tutorials, learning and teaching materials.

 

Other Search Tools

Infopeople - Best Search Tools Page Search form with the best search tools on one page. You may like to Bookmark this page for easy and efficient searching.

Infopeople - Best Search Tools Chart Chart of "the best features of the best search tools."

Ready Reference Collection Excellent, annotated collection, from the Internet Public Library.

RefDesk.com Links to a multitude of ready reference sites, including encyclopedias, headline news and more. USA-based, but comprehensive.

 Information Literacy: Search Strategies Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need - From NoodleTools.

 

Evaluating Websites

The 5 Ws for Evaluating Web Sites Kathy Schrock's Guide. A simple but useful reminder of how to evaluate web sites.

 

Domain Names and Country Codes

Domain Names

Often the final syllables in the domain name can give us a fair indication of the kind of information we are likely to get from that address.

.gov (or in NZ - .govt.nz) = Government site or agency e.g. http://www.govt.nz/

.com (or in NZ - .co.nz) = a commercial site or organization e.g. http://www.apple.com/

.edu (or in NZ - .ac.nz) = a university or tertiary education site e.g. http://www.auckland.ac.nz/

.mil (or in NZ - .mil.nz) = military organization e.g. http://www.army.mil.nz

.net (or in NZ - .net.nz) = organisations and service providers e.g. http://www.tourism.net.nz/

.org (or in NZ - .org.nz) = a not-for-profit organization e.g. http://www.consumer.org.nz/

.k12 (or in NZ - .school) = secondary, primary, and pre-schools e.g. http://www.kingscollege.school.nz/

Country Codes

The origin of websites can be recognised by the country code which is added at the end of URLs. Some common ones you will quickly recognise are:

  • AU = Australia
  • CA = Canada
  • CH = Switzerland
  • DE = Germany
  • FR = France
  • GB = Great Britain (UK)
  • NZ = New Zealand (Aotearoa)
  • UK = United Kingdom
  • US = United States