Manhattanville College Library
Quick Guide To Internet Search Engines

General Search Engines

• periodically scan the web reading and indexing individual home pages
• master indexes are created and are used to match the keywords entered in the search
• advantages:  indexes cover over 35 million web sites and are updated frequently
• disadvantages:  searches often retrieve numerous irrelevant sites and may leave out highly relevant sites

Specialty Search Engines

• designed to search content-specific Web pages and are usually equipped with special features to help you pinpoint information
• information retrieved is obtained from a variety of scholarly sources including peer reviewed papers, theses, abstracts, and articles
• advantages:  great place to perform up-to-date subject-specific scholary research
• disadvantages:  search results can be limited if database is deeply rooted in one particular discipline of knowledge

Directories

• indexers examine each site and place it into a subject category
• advantages: useful for broad, general topics;  high percentage of relevancy from retrieved hits
• disadvantages: indexes a very small percentage of the web

Evaluated Directories

• professionally selected web sites with descriptions and/or evaluations
• suggested for finding reputable web sites for research purposes

Meta Search Engines

• runs your search over multiple search engines to increase the possible number of sites retrieved
• sites are ranked for relevancy and duplicate sites are eliminated
• advantages:  fast and easy way to find good sites on a given topic
• disadvantages:  do not always work well with comprehensive searches such as boolean and stringing together keywords and phrases