Just for fun, use this Google Search Box to locate yourself or any name-sakes on the World Wide Web:

• Key in your name.
• Select, "Entire World Wide Web."
• Click the Google Search button.

Helpful Hint:   Best to use quotation marks or you might get waaaaaaaaaay too many results.  Like this:  Key "Jane Doe" into the search box.  Try adding your place of birth or your hometown:  "John Doe" +"City, State" or such. 

Select Entire World Wide Web Just Our Site      Google Espaņa

So...now that you've Googled yourself, you might be thinking you know all about search engines.  Did you realize there are hundreds--if not thousands--of search engines out there?  Here are a dozen of better-known ones (in alphabetical order):

 

www.alltheweb.com

www.altavista.com

www.askjeeves.com

www.dogpile.com (formerly www.askjeeves.com)

www.excite.com

www.looksmart.com

www.lycos.com

www.search.com

vivisimo.com

www.yahoo.com

 

Use these links to search for your name in each of them.  Will the results be different? 

 

What is a search engine anyway?  Search for "search engine" using these engines:

www.webopedia.com

www.whatis.com

 

Then, there are metasearch engines (those that get results from several search engines at once):

www.kartoo.com

www.mamma.com

www.webcrawler.com

 

These search engines are recommended for children:

www.askforkids.com - (formerly Ask Jeeves for Kids)

www.factmonster.com

www.kidsclick.org

yahooligans.yahoo.com - Search engine and directory

 

Two metasearch engines for kids:

www.ivyjoy.com/rayne/kidssearch.html - Ivy's Search Engine Resources for Kids

 

For more about kids' searches and protecting them from undesirable information, check out this article:  Kids Search Engines (Danny Sullivan, 2004)

 

Free Encyclopedia Research:

encyclopedia.com - The Columbia Encyclopedia

encarta.msn.com - Microsoft Encarta

www.worldbookonline.com - Free to AOL Members; also free through some public library sites by using your library card number.

 

SPECIALTY SEARCH ENGINES:

 

Cybercafe Search Engine - cybercaptive.com

 

Scientific information - www.scirus.com

 

Fine arts - www.artcyclopedia.com

 

Business - www.business.com

 

Legal professionals - www.lawcrawler.com

 

Overwhelming?   Undoubtedly.   This may help.   Go to this Internet Tutorial provided by the University Libraries at Albany, New York:
How to Choose a Search Engine

 

--Grace and Archie McKee
McKee Consulting Web Design
January 3, 2005
Updated August 25, 2006