• Search engines bulldoze their way through billions of web pages, storing information in a database
• They conduct your search against their sometimes out-of-date database, not the current web
• Used cleverly and with care, they can often turn up exactly what you want.
• Even the biggest search engines only cover a fraction of the Internet.
• Typically, Google and Yahoo only share 3 web sites in their first ten hits.
• If you don't find what you want first time, refine your search terms
• If all else fails, try another search engine.

Our favourite:

Google - simple, fast, with excellent results - it’s close to all-encompassing and we strongly recommend you try it first

Google Scholar restricts your results to (mostly) scholarly articles, often with full-text

Others we recommend:

Yahoo! - the other big one, snapping at Google’s heels and a good second choice

Dogpile - a popular choice for getting results from lots of search engines at once

Looking for Australian stuff?

We recommend you try Google or Yahoo - they both cover Australian sites well

Looking for full-text Book Content:

Google Book Search is worth a look

Search Inside the Book from Amazon.com is even better for newer publications

Tips 'n' Tutes

Here are some good places to find out more about searching and search engines.

Lost in Space Interactive: is our online, real time interactive tutorial that will improve your searching out of sight (JCU)

VISA - Researching with Electronic Tools is a shorter, simpler and more general, interactive introduction (JCU)

Finding More on the Web: is a comprehensive print guide to search engines and how to make them work better for you (JCU)

Search Engine Showdown is an illuminating trove of comparisons, statistics, reviews and search strategies from Greg Notess.

For information on citing web resources in assignments, see our Referencing Styles page.

For information on evaluating what you find on the web, see our Evaluating Internet Resources page.