1.3 Search engines

Use search engines if you cannot find what you want from the gateways. These give you lists of a large number of sites. However these sites have not been checked for quality as search engines index the Web automatically. Even if a site is high up in the list of search results it may not answer your question.

Choice of a search engine depends on personal taste and which is currently considered the best.

• Google (http://www.google.co.uk) [Opens new browser window]
  
  
• AllTheWeb (http://www.alltheweb.com) [Opens new browser window]
  
  
• Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) [Opens new browser window]
  Yahoo also includes a directory where human editors have organised Web sites under sections, including ‘Health’.
  
  
• MedHunt (http://www.hon.ch/) [Opens new browser window]
  MedHunt is a medical search engine provided by the Health On the Net Foundation (HON), a not-for-profit International Swiss Organisation.
  
  

If you want to find out about individual search engines and what they do go to Phil Bradley's Finding information: search engines (http://www.philb.com/whichengine.htm) [Opens new browser window].

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© Copyright for this site is held by Contact a Family and the School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences, Northumbria University. Site published February 2003. Last updated September 2008. Review date September 2009.