Google, the web search engine, is rumoured to be planning a float onto the US stockmarket. It was even rumoured that Google turned down a purchase offer from Bill Gates at Microsoft! The search engine company has never confirmed that it will float. However, speculation has been rife for months that the company will launch an ‘initial public offering’ (IPO) this spring, which could value it at £10bn-£15bn (about the size of British Telecom, for instance).
Google claims to index over 4.2 billion web pages, making it the search engine with the widest overall coverage of the web. Even so, it is claimed this is merely the tip of the iceberg, and most of the web is ‘hidden’ from traditional search engines: this is the so-called ‘deep web’. More on that another day.
Google has become the most popular search engine - even amongst researchers in academia. Indeed, it has one of the internet’s most visited websites overall. But are you using it in the most effective way? Google, itself, has useful pages of search tips. And there is this recent article in The Guardian.
Still not finding what you want? Some of the ‘new generation’ search engines are worth trying out. Vivísimo is a ‘meta search engine’, which means that it does not have its own index of web pages, but runs searches across a selection of search engines and de-duplicates the results. Vivísimo then ‘clusters’ the results on the fly into similar groups which can help to tease out the main themes within the search subjectstructure your ideas about a subject.
Teoma, is supposed to be so good, but I am not particularly impressed. In addition to listing the results, it will also suggest high quality web resources and provide tips on narrowing your search.
Then there’s Turbo10, another meta search engine, which actually does search the ‘deep web’. You can choose up to ten ‘deep net’ search engines per search (out of over 2,000!). An interesting venture, if somewhat dull looking web site.
Another worthy and (in my opinion) to-be-supported venture is the dmoz open directory project search, part of a growing movement towards free open access information and open source software.
Also we’ve got Renardus (after the fox - cunning!). an EU-funded search project claiming to pick out high quality European educational internet resources - makes a change from the US-oriented nature of much of the internet.
You must check out KartOO. The name’s weird already, but this has to be the strangest search engine yet. A fish-like creature swims around the screen a bit, then you get your results. They are displayed visually with lines connecting similar websites. It takes some getting used to. This visual connecting thing is becoming fashionable - but more about that another day. I was hoping to see ‘Fishy’ some more, but maybe I had one too many coffees today.
Well, I’m sure you get the idea. Why not bang out a quick search on Google for ’search engines’?
STOP PRESS: The 4th Annual Search Engine Watch Awards have been announced. Seems that Google is still king in most areas…
And don’t forget the University Library Electronic Resources website! You can be sure of quality information if you use that - it should be a common research tool. But I’ll leave that for another day. Now, let’s just take another peek at KartOO…