Internet searching

On this page:

• Search engines:
  • General search engines
  • Academic & science search engines
  • Multi-search engines
  • Country-specific search engines
• Subject gateways
  These can help you to locate useful Internet resources for your subject. Most subject gateways are selective about the choice of sites to which they provide links.

Search engines

Search engines can be a useful starting point for discovering resources on the Internet, though sometimes it may be better to use a specialist subject gateway. It is important that you are critical in judging the quality of the information that you find on the Internet. Our page on how to use search engines, including Google, effectively also describes the limitations of search engines. You should databases accessible through MetaLib if you wish to research a topic thoroughly. These will give you access to quality, usually refereed, published research.

General search engines

• Google
  • See also the selective Google scholar for scholarly and scientific resources and Google book search for searching the full-text of books.
  • and Googleguide for help.
    

• Ask Jeeves UK
• Bing: the search engine from Microsoft
• Britannica Internet Guide: selective, and requires a membership subscription to access the full articles
• Exalead: includes truncation, approximate spelling and phonetic search; displays thumbnails with results
• Excite: the default search is of the Excite website
• Lycos
• Yahoo UK & Ireland
• Yippy: with 'clouds' to help navigate results (was Clusty)

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Academic & science search engines

• Google Scholar for scholarly and scientific resources. Google Scholar includes our Get it! service, if you are on-campus or are using the Remote Desktop or Off-site Proxy. Please note that 'Internet' tab of the 'Quick search' box on the Library homepage provides a Google Scholar search option.
• Scirus, Science Research and Citeseer: scientific resources
  

Multi-search engines

• Turboscout and Zuula access many search engines without retyping your query

Country-specific

• Freesearch: UK focused with image search and dictionary
• Yell.com: UK specific directory of businesses
• Search Engines of the World: listings for Asia, Australasia, Europe and Global. North America and Latin Americado not contain entries.

Note that some of the general search engines listed above have options to restrict the search results to the UK.

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Subject gateways

These can help you to locate useful Internet resources for your subject. Most subject gateways are selective about the choice of sites to which they provide links, though it is best to always judge the quality of the information that you find.

General

Two general entry points for subject-related information on the Web are:

• PINAKES, a subject launch pad
  From Heriot-Watt University
• Intute
  Please note that Intute as an active service with new content being added will end on 31st July 2010. After that it will just be maintained as it is until the end of July 2011. Please bear this in mind if you use Intute during this period.

Additional resources

• British Academy Portal
  Humanities and social sciences
• FLAG (Foreign Law Guide)
  A gateway to the holdings of foreign, international and comparative law in UK universities and national libraries
• MetaLib resource gateway
  The University of Bristol gateway to databases, library catalogues, subject-based web gateways, ejournals, ebooks, and selected Internet resources
• MICHAEL: Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe
  Provides access to the rich variety of digital material from European museums, libraries and archives. It is possible to view subsets by country, period, and subject.
• Social Science Research Network
  Composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences

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