Web Searchers And Indexes


Many times it is best to start your surfing adventures using the various web searchers and indexes listed below. You may find that using one of the full service search pages a great way to find out tons of places to visit and explore simply by typing in a topic, phrase or keyword that is of interest to you.

You will find many varied, unique, informative and interesting sites within this BIGSURF publication but no guide could possibly hope to list everything that is out there. I ardently encourage and recommend everyone to try these search utilities listed below to further your web and Internet explorations and to quickly find available information about what you are looking for.


Full-Service Search Pages


Here are some of the premiere places to start your searches. These pages all offer links to several search engines on the same page or offer links to many search engines and other search related pages on the web. Using these pages is easy but you will need a graphical web browser such as Netscape, Mosaic or MacWeb to use these pages. The W3 page offers mutliple searches to be initiated right from the same page using several different search engines and criteria. The results of the search are then given to you onscreen or you may choose to save the results page and download for future reference. All of the pages are free to the public and are available free of charge. These are the three *best* places to start a search I have found on the web (so far). They are accessible and easily navigated and once you begin to use them - you'll come back here time and time again...


CSC Search Services Web Page

http://www.csc.fi/math_topics/Search.html

Searching the Internet

http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/I-M/is/search.html

W3 Multi-Search Engines Pages

http://cuiwww.unige.ch/meta-index.html

http://uxa.cso.uiuc.edu/~acp52294/search.html

CUSI (Configurable Unified Search Interface)

http://pubweb.nexor.co.uk/public/cusi/cusi.html

A unified search site. Nexor U.K. offers this searching resource tool as an integral single form to search a large number of different WWW engines for documents, people, software, dictionaries, and more all from within this one site.


Web Searchers And Indexes


EINet Galaxy

http://andromeda.einet.net/search.html

All-In-1 Search Page

http://www.albany.net/~wcross/all1srch.html

AliWeb

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/aliweb/form.html

The WebCrawler

http://webcrawler.com

The WebCrawler II

http://webcrawler.cs.washington.edu/WebCrawler/WebQuery.htm

The WWW Worm

http://www.cs.colorado.edu/home/mcbryan/WWWW.html

EINet Galaxy Web searcher

http://galaxy.einet.net/search.html

A complete web search service which includes many different ways to find what you're looking for. Includes links to other web-based searchers.


GNN Home page

http://gnn.com/gnn/gnn.html

Has a huge list of home pages from around the web Look in the Netizens area which lists individual home pages.


Yahoo Search

http://www.yahoo.com/search.html

Although originally set up as a starting point for web surfers, this page has come into its own and now offers a huge database of over 40,000 web pages that are part of a searchable index. The database searchable list of web pages keeps growing and there is no charge for the use of this searching utility. The index is searchable by web page title and keyword so there is a good chance that what you are looking for is here. Once a web resource is found, the user can quickly link to that page or resource.


Web ROBOTS (Info Searchers And Finders)


CheckWeb

http://www.stuff.com/~bcutter/home/programs/checkweb.html

A useful robot that checks your web docs for dead links


JumpStation

http://www.stir.ac.uk/jsbin/js

Robot search engine for locating sites and docs on Web


Lycos

http://lycos.cs.cmu.edu/

http://www.lycos.com/

Robot catalog of Web, gopher and ftp sites. Even though Lycos has now signed a non-exclusive agreement with Microsoft to be carried on the new MicroSoft Network, Lycos' Dr. Mauldin has emphasized the point that Lycos will remain free to all users. Please use the new "com" address after July 1995.


MOMspider WWW94 paper

http://www.ics.uci.edu/WebSoft/MOMspider/WWW94/paper.html

Roy Fielding's description of MOMspider and how other bots work


SG-Scout home page

http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu:80/~ptbb/SG-Scout/SG-Scout.html

Another Web catalog robot - runs every few months to update info


WWW Robots, Wanderers and Spiders

http://web.nexor.co.uk/mak/doc/robots/robots.html

Place for info on Web robots. Includes list of known bots on WWW


World Wide Web Wanderer Index

http://www.netgen.com/cgi/wandex

A searchable index of over 28,000 documents from over 14,000 sites


WWW growth-bot

http://www.netgen.com/info/growth.html

web robot that measures the size of the Web


SaavySearch

http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~dreiling/smartform.html

Usenet Searchers


Stanford University Electronic Library

http://sift.stanford.edu/

Lets you monitor Usenet newsgroups by entered keywords


Who is on Usenet?

mailto://mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu

Subject: send usenet-addresses/UserName

This is a search service available using email. The subject line is the command line that requests a search on the user name you specify. This will return everyone matching that name who has ever posted to Usenet.


Dictionary Look-Up


WWW Searchable Look-up sites

http://c.gp.cs.cmu.edu:5013/prog/webster

http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/wessler/dict

Gopher Searchable Look-up sites

gopher://gopher.niaid.nih.gov:70/77/deskref/.Dictionary/enquire

gopher://knot.queensu.ca:17502/1webster

Other Web-Based Searchers


OpenText Corporation

http://www.opentext.com

OpenText Web Index

http://opentext.uunet.ca:8081/intro.html

http://opentext.uunet.ca:8080/omw.html

The Open Text Web Index, while still under heavy construction, is now available for general use. This Web search engine has currently indexed about half a million pages (http, gopher, ftp), and intends, in the near future, to index over 2 million pages and over 1 billion words of text. The following features of the Web Index distinguish it from the many other other web searchers.

  • 100% of the full text of every page is indexed
  • Boolean and ranked search are supported
  • Updated every night in an effort to track the web as closely as possible
  • Prefix, word, and phrase search all run at the same (high) speed
  • Hosted by a big-league Internet Service Provicer (UUNET Canada), so there's lots of bandwidth
  • It's **FREE***
  • Real-time Key-Word-In-Context display of match points, to avoid following URL's to check up on every match.
  • No preset number of match returns; if you find 845 pages, and have the patience, the Index will scroll through them all.

  • CUI W3 Catalog

    http://cuiwww.unige.ch/w3catalog

    Huge linked catalog (searchable) of tons of web sites.


    Internet People search services

    gopher://yaleinfo.yale.edu:7700/11/Internet-People

    Lots of links to gopher, whois, and telnet sites that can search for folks on the net. Also searchers for Usenet posts to find those Internetters you're looking for. A great resource for finding folks.


    Whois servers list

    ftp://sipb.mit.edu/pub/whois/whois-servers.list

    KNOWBOT Information Services

    telnet://info.cnri.reston.va.us:185/

    This will enable you to use a command-line to search for a variety of information. You can enter commands like "query jones" to look for someone with that last name. This interface is not for the faint of heart, though.


    CULTURE--People--Lists -- directories WWW Home pages

    http://www.rpi.edu/Internet/Guides/decemj/icmc/culture-people-lists.html

    Holy cow! Lots of search functions and links here!


    NETFIND

    http://alpha.acast.nova.edu/netfind.html

    Directions for Finding E-mail Addresses via Netfind

    Enter a query in this format: name key - where name is the last name of the person, and the key words are hints at the location to search.

    For example, to find information about Darren Hardy at the University of Colorado in Boulder, use the query "hardy boulder colorado" or "hardy boulder colorado computer science".

    Netfind will return a list of possible locations based on the key words. Select one. Netfind will then look for information on the person at that location. When ready to start, select this.


    OpenText Web Text search engine

    http://opentext.uunet.ca:8080/omw.html

    This Web Text Search Engine goes beyond any text search engine currently available. Text can be search in the subject, heading and title. Also has Boolean operators beyond the usual "AND" and "OR" for you can also use boolean functions such as as: BUT NOT, NEAR and FOLLOWED BY. This is one of the ultimate and most powerful text search engines on the web presently.


    SimTel Mirrors searcher

    http://harvest.cs.colorado.edu/brokers/pcindex/

    SHASE searcher

    http://www.acs.oakland.edu/cgi-bin/shase

    The advantage of these search tools is that they are usually MUCH faster than Archie, though the scope of the search is more limited. If you know the exact file name, the WWW search tools can respond in seconds. The harvest broker also allows you to set the number of allowed spelling errors. Look for more of these "broker" type search engines in the future. Since their search is more limited and of a more specific nature these search engines are extremely fast and do not tie up connection time or bandwidth for more general or broad-based search engines or search 'bots. You get the information you need faster and can get back to work (or play).


    Point

    http://www.pointcom.com/

    A new web service that is planning to have 1000 new reviews compiled each month of various web pages found across the globe. Each site is rated and this could prove to become a very potent and powerful resource for web surfers. Give it a try!


    Industry.Net

    http://www.industry.com/

    Mostly a business related web search guide but still useful for many users. Includes an online yellow page listing and product information on all types of products and vendors. The database is searchable so if you need to find (for example) who sells and makes widgets and where they are located - then this searchable resource is your cup of tea. Site list is huge and growing.


    Listing And Directory Services


    McKinley Internet Directory

    http://www.mckinley.com/

    A "yellow pages" directory of over 60,000 URLs !! The largest single directory listing available on the web to date. Your chances are high of finding what you were or are looking for on the web. Fantastic. Brought to you by Christine Maxwell (daughter of the late Robert Maxwell). Christine has become herself a new breed of Internet publishing tycoons. After October 15th the McKinley Directory will only be available to users that are acessing the web page through ISP's and other online services that have paid to license this directory service. (They query your host domain).


    AT&T 1-800 listings

    http://att.net/dir800

    A very complete 1-800 directory listing of businesses that offer toll free calling. Updated daily. Easy to use and find what you're looking for.


    Internet White pages

    http://home.mcom.com/commun/internet_white_pages.html

    Various links and pointers to listings and searchers that can find individuals on the Internet. Find folks that have web home pages or find folks that have email addresses or folks that might post to Usenet. Other searchers and indexes also available. This site is brought to you by the folks at Netscape Communications.


    Internet Yellow and White pages directories and the Four11 listings

    http://home.mcom.com/home/internet-white-pages.html

    http://yellow.com/

    http://www.four11.com/

    The Internet "phone books" which contain numerous listings of both personal amd business addresses. Includes email addresses and Web URLs.


    Nynex Yellow Pages

    http://www.vtcom.fr/nynex

    Nynex, which is the Northeast US region's largest local phone company now has their complete Yellow Pages directory and listing avalable through the World-Wide Web. It offers a searchable database and a a search using a clickable map and includes clickable links to many business home pages.


    Worldwide Yellow Pages

    http://www.yellow.com/cgi-bin/SearchWWYP

    Another very comprehensive listing that includes the ability to search the index with a variety of criteria. You can search by the type of business, name of business, type of service needed, location and area.


    ISP Yellow Pages

    http://www.index.org/

    A large and easy to use searchable database of businesses that have a presence on the Internet or have information available on the 'net.


    New Riders WWW Yellow Pages

    http://www.mcp.com/nrp/wwwyp/

    A large and impressive resource that spans listings from across the 'net


    NetCenter Interactive Yellow Pages

    http://netcenter.com/yellows.html

    A very large and extensive listing that is organized by subject matter.


    Works Software Yellow Pages

    http://planetcom.com/workmedia/wsyp.html

    A very large listing that is much like a regular yellow pages book with site listings ordered by name and address. Contains lots of computer and technology oriented businesses and services.


    NetPages

    http://www.aldea.com/wwwindex.html

    A project that is still under construction but is still very useful. It's like a white pages and yellow pages directory of the Internet all rolled up into one big offering. It offers a searchable database and when this thing is finished (well... more complete) it's going to be a knockout!


    INFO-SEEK Web Searcher

    http://www2.infoseek.com

    Although this is a commercial subscription-based index search service. However, the Infoseek index search service lets you "try before you buy" and offers free search demos and so can be a useful (and free) search resource that is availableto the public for trial use.


    Yahoo server

    http://www.yahoo.com

    Yahoo Search

    http://www.yahoo.com/search.html

    Although originally set up as a starting point for web surfers, this page has come into its own and now offers a huge database of over 40,000 web pages that are part of a searchable index. The database searchable list of web pages keeps growing and there is no charge for the use of this searching utility. The index is searchable by web page title and keyword so there is a good chance that what you are looking for is here. Once a web resource is found, the user can quickly link to that page or resource.


    Commercial Sites Index

    http://www.directory.net

    This web index provides daily reports, index listings and updates on all the new commercial sites available on the web. This index offers site annotations so the user is somewhat briefed and informed before deciding to choose a link to a commercial site for further investigation. This web site is sponsored by Open Market Inc. and remains a free idex service to the public. If you want the latest info on new commercial web sites then this is the place to go. Accurate and professional update reports daily.


    Ethical Web Agents

    http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/Proceedings/Agents/eichmann.ethical/eichmann.html

    Info for web robot users or those who would like to use the services of a WWW robot or have a custom made 'bot service created for their use.


    Guidelines for Robot Writers

    http://web.nexor.co.uk/mak/doc/robots/guidelines.html

    List of Robots

    http://asearch.mccmedia.com/embed.html

    WWW Robots, Wanderers and Spiders

    http://web.nexor.co.uk/mak/doc/robots/robots.html


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