Get info about new reports and updates
See Also
Details about the top search engines
A SearchEngineLand.com article discusses how Google+ can affect site rankings, and also points out some issues.
The top three search engines all have blogs that offer updates on new features.We recommend that you keep up with the latest information about Google, Bing and Yahoo.
An article on Google's blog discusses their privacy policy.
Yahoo provides a helpful page on how to use its Search Assist feature.
An article at HowStuffWorks.com, a Discovery Network site, explains the inner workings of search engines.
A useful tool for comparing searches is the blind search engine test built by Michael Kordahi.
Christian Langreiter provides an interesting tool for comparing Google vs. Yahoo results. When you enter a search term, dots and lines illustrate the relationship among the sites listed at Google vs. those at Yahoo.
Privacy issues
World Privacy Forum provides a set of tips for protecting your privacy while searching.
TechSpot.com has a comprehensive article on protecting privacy while managing searches. It includes tips on cutting ad clutter.
A Wall Street Journal blog discusses how some search engines compete for the strongest privacy protection.
Most web browsers offer some form of private browsing; see our report on
Search engines for kids
If your children use the web for school research projects, you'll want to point them to a kid-safe search engine. These engines return only listings of sites that are kid-friendly, so you don't have to worry about your kids stumbling across questionable content. (ConsumerSearch also has a report on stand-alone parental-control software.)
This page from the University of New England, an online university, lists kid safe search engines and related articles.
Experts say some of the best kid-safe search engines are Ask Kids and Yahoo Kids!
Tips on doing research on the web
Noodle Quest leads you through a brief quiz to help you find the best search tools for a certain research task, from defining a topic to getting expert information.
The University of California, Berkeley Library has useful articles on searching the Internet, including one on searching "The Invisible Web":
UC Berkeley also provides a handy tutorial on Web research.
Greg Notess has written a book about search strategy. The outline, available online, includes quite a few links to useful tools and information.
Keeping up with the newest search engines and news
ResearchBuzz.com offers news about search engines, databases and other research tools via an e-mail newsletter or RSS news feed.
ResourceShelf.com, edited by Gary Price and Shirl Kennedy, publishes a blog and e-mail newsletter with resources for all kinds of online research.
Pandia.com has information and links to news and information on all aspects of Internet search.
Phil Bradley's blog is full of news and ideas about Internet searching, with an emphasis on Web 2.0.
Links to selected search engines:
Answers.com (owned by Info.com)
AOL Search ("enhanced" by Google)
Ask.com (owned by IAC/Interactive Corp.)
Blinkx (video)
Dogpile (owned by InfoSpace)
Foodieview(recipe search)
Goodsearch (donates to charity based on search)
Info.com (meta-search)
Ixquick (offers privacy)
Mamma (meta-search owned by Copernic)
Metacrawler (meta-search)
Scroogle (Google search proxy; protects privacy)
Yippy (formerly Clusty)