Introduction
Search Engines allow you to search the internet. There are many different Search Engines.
Google is the number one Search Engine in the world but to access information effectively you really need to know some tricks.
Take a couple of minutes to check out a few Search Engines we have provided for you here along with those tips and tricks you will need. Junior and Middle School students stick to those in the left-hand column. Years 8-12 should watch the Google and Google Scholar tutorials and presentations provided. Give them a go!
Sweet Search
Sweet Search "searches only the 35,000 Web sites that our staff of research experts and librarians and teachers have evaluated and approved. We constantly evaluate our search results and "fine-tune" them, by increasing the ranking of Web sites from organizations such as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, PBS and university Web sites.
SweetSearch helps students find outstanding information, faster. It enables them to determine the most relevant results from a list of credible resources, and makes it much easier for them to find primary sources. We exclude not only obvious spam sites, but also marginal sites that read well, but lack academic or journalistic rigour. As importantly, the very best Web sites that are often buried on other search engines appear on the first page of SweetSearch results."
Infotopia
Infotopia is an academic search engine accessing only trusted websites selected by librarians and teachers.
Kiddle
​Kiddle is a kid safe visual search engine which returns results in a specific order.
Results 1-3 are pages written specifically for kids which have been handpicked and checked by our editors.
Results 4-7 have not been written specifically for kids, but have content written in a simple way, easy for kids to understand and handpicked and checked by Kiddle editors.
Results 8 and on are famous sites that are written for adults, providing expert content, but are harder for kids to understand.
Tin Eye
Search the web for matches to images uploaded through this site.
Kidz Search
Kidz Search "is a great tool to teach children (and adults too!) how to properly use a search engine. Finding content using search is a very important skill to learn."
InstaGrok
"instaGrok is an innovative educational search engine that combines sophisticated technology with an interactive user interface to make learning more engaging, personalized and fun for everyone. instaGrok is used by hundreds of thousands of students, teachers and everyday people every month."
Google Search
Google Search for Data and Statistics
Google Scholar Searching
Google Scholar Read Results
reading urls
Reading URLs
One of the first steps in evaluating information from the internet is to read its URL. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator and simply is the address of the website. Each page on the website will have its own address or unique URL. You can tell a lot from a URL ... Use the strategies below to help read and evaluate the URLs for Search Engine results as well as use the URL to search for information from specific sites.
- Internet Domain Names
Click on the image above to load the full list of Internet Domain Extensions and their definitions.
The extensions to use for assignments include:
.gov - government departments
.org - not for profit organisations
.edu - educational institutions (be wary of these though; some may be authored by students with little authority in the subject)
Extensions to avoid:
.info - have been associated with scams
.com and .biz - business sites trying to sell a product/service/idea
If you want to return results for just government sites, then search Google for ... site:gov environment - Country Extensions
Access a complete list of country extensions for you to use when searching for particular perspectives or when reading URLs. To search a perspective Google ... site:in hinduism ... this will return hinduism results only from India.
Personal Websites
Personal Websites
Beware of the tilda in the URL. The tilda is the symbol which appears above. In a URL the tilda usually appears before a person's name. This signifies the website is a personal site and should be used with caution as it will contain bias.