Directories/Search Tools

Directories
Information organized into broad, general topics

Yahooligans -or- KidsClick -or- MSN Search

Also Google & AltaVista/Yahoo have directory tabs on their home pages.

Search Engines
Use "spiders" or "crawlers" to find information.

Ask.com - revamped AskJeeves site gives Smart Answers and alternate topics.

Google - Large coverage, determines relevance by other sites' links to it; search in 15 different languages.

Alta Vista - Good for specialty searches such as images, video and audio clips, or news searches; has link to Babel Fish translation site.

All The Web - If you tried Google and didn't find it, try this one.

Metasearch Engines
Uses other search engines and blends results together..

Clusty - Organizes results into relevant categories called "Clusters"; (was Vivisimo)

Killerinfo - Another clustering site.

Dogpile or Webcrawler or Metacrawler - all owned by InfoSpace, these search other search engines and score for relevance.

Kartoo - Displayed as visual "map" with keywords connecting results.

Ithaki - Searches in 14 languages or 21 countries plus categories for limiting your search.

All-in-One Search
Choose your own search engines.

Proteus - Pick one of 20 search engines or 5 metasearch engines.

OnePage - Pick from 30 differrent search engines on one page.

Specialized Searches
These sites focus on searching specific types of info.

iTools - Metasearcher with specialized searches for maps, people, finance, language, and Internet terms. Use the Research Tools section to search encyclopedias, newspapers/magazines, biographies, and general topics.

NoodleTools - choose the best search tool for your information needs.

MapQuest - Locations anywhere in the U.S. or the world.

Switchboard - Telephone directory and MapsOnUs; also from Infospace.

Singing Fish - audio/video search engine; can choose 7 different formats by audio only, video only or both