Google

All of you are familiar with Google.  It is the leading search engine with well over half of all web searches.

There are two main reasons why Google is popular: Simplicity and speed.

Google has always had advanced operators for you to refine your basic searches:

• Most of us already are familiar with AND, OR, not and " "
• Other useful tricks include site:, -site:, filetype:pdf, filetype:ppt
• Tip: do an advanced search in Google and pay attention to the resulting URL

What are some Web 2.0 alternatives?

Customization/Collaboration:

Google CSE (e.g., http://www.focuss.eu/)

Swicki (e.g., http://agnic-swicki.eurekster.com/)

MetaSearch:

CGVlibrary

ISI Web of Science

Multimedia Search:

Ask.com

Exalead.com

Social Search: (Users vote on result relevance)

iRazoo.com

Refinements:

Yubnub.org (User-defined Shorthand)

Smplr.com

Human Guided:

ChaCha.com (Live)

Mahalo.com (Pre-assembled)

Others:

Fluther.com (Q&A Forums)

http://oskope.com/ (visual search)

Further reading