Search Engines & Databases
Search Engines | Ratings & Utilities | Email Search Sites
Phone/Postal Code Searches | Other Information Indexes
Search Engines
Helping You to Find it on the Web
There are millions and millions of websites on the Internet. Search engines evolved to help you locate the information you want.
Startpage offers you Web search results from Google in complete privacy!
- Google or Google Canada (Get the Google Browser Buttons).
- HotBot.
- Yahoo! or Yahoo! Canada.
- Bing
- WebCrawler combines searches of Google, Yahoo! and Bing.
- Dogpile — Good Dog. Great Results.™
Search Privacy Issues
Search engines can use your search terms combined with your IP address (the address of your computer on the Internet) to gather useful information about you or even to alter search results based upon past search patterns (i.e. you may not get all the results you're looking for).
This information is valuable and is changing the way the Internet works — and not necessarily for the better.
Adding Your Site
To get your website linked, click on the Help menu for the search engine you wish to list your site with. Each search engine has a different method for submitting new sites for inclusion.
Search Tools For Your Site
If your site contains more than just a few pages, you might wish to consider adding a search facility for your site. While the major search engines can do an excellent job of providing a listing of relevant pages on your site, you might wish to keep visitors on your site as they search for something there rather than sending them off to compare your pages with your competitor's site.
- SearchTools.com lists and ranks search tools for websites and intranets.
Search Ratings & Utilities
Rating Search Engines
The "best" search engine depends upon the type of search you are conducting.
- Search Engine Ratings and Reviews shows how search engines are performing in various areas.
- The Spider's Apprentice — a helpful guide To Web search engines.
- Search Engine Optimization - shows how the various search engines are interlinked (get the PDF version here).
Search Engine Utilities
Toolbars
Toolbars and similar addins require minor installation, but work as part of your browser's interface. While convenient, you might want to consider what privacy information you are giving up in exchange for the use of these tools. What you search for and what you do with it is being monitored.
Check the search engine sites and look for "toolbars" or "tools" or "more" for such utilities. Most search engines have such tools.
Multi-Search Software
This utility requires installation, but will use all the search engines at once to find your information.
- Copernic Agent is Windows software that interfaces with multiple search engines to search many at one time. It requires Internet Explorer 5 or better.
Email Search Sites:
These sites have some free information searches and some that you need to pay for. The rise in concerns about privacy are having an effect on what is available for free.
- Bigfoot (Multi-country and multi-language searches).
- Yahoo! People Search (Both telephone and email listings).
- InfoSpace (US name and address records, phone records, marriage records, divorce records, death records, real property records, and DEA registrants).
- Internet Address Finder (Search by name or email address).
- WhoWhere (Both telephone and email listings).
- World Email Directory (Email listings for outside North America).
Phone/Postal Code Search Sites
You can register your phone numbers with Canada's National Do Not Call List. Canadian registered charities, political parties, and candidates are still allowed to call for donations and there are some other exceptions.
Other Information Indexes
- Russ Harvey's Medical Links includes links to professional medical journals on-line, nutrition and alternative health sites, toxic substances information sites and hospital links.
- Decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada (Lexum is now a private company).
- Dictionaries & Encyclopedias.
- About.com.
- Howstuffworks.
www.RussHarvey.bc.ca/resources/search.html
Updated: December 15, 2011