Search Engines For the Invisible Web - Searchable Sites for the Invisible Web (Page 2 of 4 ) Setting the dividing line between searchable sites, search engines (topical, general, or metasearch), and (topical) databases is a little bit tricky. Many Web places tend to fall into more than one category. For example, a website might not only link to information on a particular topic, but include articles covering the topic as well -- which would make the site both a search engine and a searchable database. In that sense, sometimes the divisions are artificial, and the categorization here is done just to separate them from one another. Because of this, some of the search engines, such as ProFusion, are mentioned under the several different categories in which they fit. Another tool for navigating the Invisible Web -- search directories –- has already been discussed in a previous article. Some of the most popular searchable sites and search engines for the the Invisible Web are Direct Search (http://www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm), IncyWincy (http://www.incywincy.com/), The Invisible Web (http://www.invisibleweb.com), and CompletePlanet (http://www.completeplanet.com). Although some of them provide additional metasearch options for searching with five, 10, or even more search engines, each of these has its own indexing capabilities for Invisible Web pages. Direct Search (http://www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm) is considered one of the biggest and most intensively maintained resources for the Invisible Web. It is not only a search engine, but also a search directory with links in many categories. One of its advantages is the topical compilations, which are gatherings of links connected to a specific topic -- for instance, Almanacs/Factbooks/Statistical Reports & Related Reference Tools. IncyWincy (http://www.incywincy.com/) is another search engine that explicitly states its purpose to be searching the Invisible Web. It claims that it indexes 50 million pages and hundreds of thousands of search engines. It enables users to search for results with searches and with forms, which bring results from searchable sites. A search box is included under each result, within which you can perform a search as if you had gone to the search site itself. It is useful because it is easy to continue your search immediately. There is a block to the right which shows how many of the total hits for a particular search query fall into a given category, such as Computers, Kids, Society, thus making it easier to refine the search. Additionally, IncyWincy supports metasearches and searching for news.
The Invisible Web (http://www.invisibleweb.com) redirects you to http://www.profusion.com. This site was once the first Invisible Web directory, but since then it has grown into a metasearch engine, which allows users to perform vertical searches on many topics. Some of the results in those searches could be found using the major search engines as well, but it is much more convenient when the results are grouped together. For instance, searching the vertical search group Company Tech Support included results from the Knowledge Bases of Apple, IBM, Novell, and Gateway. Lycos Invisible Web Catalog (http://dir.lycos.com/Reference/Searchable_Databases/) may include the word “catalog” in its name, but this resource is actually a search engine that gives you access to all sorts of online databases, related to the specified term.
CompletePlanet (http://www.completeplanet.com) is a valuable resource for the Invisible Web because it provides links to over 70,000 searchable databases and specialty search engines. The trick with dynamic searchable databases is that they are more difficult to crawl. Because of this, they are rarely indexed by major search engines. When a search for a term is performed, it is submitted to multiple databases simultaneously, so in a sense this is also a metasearch engine. Geniusfind (http://www.geniusfind.com/) is similar to Complete Planet in that it is a database and search engine finder. Although it does not have the rich resources of the other search engines, Geniusfind offers topical search engines and databases. It can be used to locate an engine or a database for a topic of interest, which a searcher can use to perform an additional search.
The all-purpose search engines for the Invisible Web can be used to directly find the information in which you are interested. But often it is faster and easier to use an all-purpose search engine to locate a topical search engine or a database. After you find search engines or databases on topics of interest, you can go to the site to see whether they provide the information you need. There are search engines and searchable databases for almost any topic imaginable. Next: Metasearch Engines >>
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