"The Internet is a vast, unorganized storehouse of Information. " (unknown)

There are many, many resources for finding information on the Internet. Nonetheless, searching for information takes some thinking and some determination on your part. Once you roll up your sleeves and get started, you will be amazed by the breadth and depth of information which can be found on the Internet.

Keep in mind that there is no one grand index, no central authority for categorizing information on the Internet. Here are some of the more popular search engines. Some, like Altavista, are based on keywords. Others like Yahoo are hierarchically organized by subject, and so are inherently more browse-able.

Note that this is not a comprehensive list of all search engines, but rather a list of the ones that we have found most useful and reliable. Search engines allow you to enter key words or phrases into a text box, then click on a button (or press enter) and the engine will look through the Internet to find web pages containing those keywords. To use this page, enter your search terms in the box on the left, then click on the Search button to the right. If you want to go directly to the search engine homepage, don't enter any search terms, just click on the button.

To learn more on how to effectively use search engines follow, this link:   Detailed info on using search engines

search.com

After you've explored some of the search engines below, you may want to try this site as a short-cut. They maintain a list of over 250 search engines, with quick and easy access to the most common ones.

SavvySearch

SavvySearch lets you search multiple search engines simultaneously. You enter your search query, and they automatically submit it to InfoSeek, WebCrawler, etc., and collect the results on one page for you.

Query Interface to the WWW Home Pages Harvest Broker.

This is an index of web pages built with the Harvest Information Discovery and Access System. You can perform "fuzzy" searches by allowing a certain number of misspellings in the search terms.

Global Network Navigator

GNN is operated by O'Reilly & Associates book publishers. GNN has a pretty thorough index of the Internet, broken down into categories. Also, if you have The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog, by Ed Krol, this is where to find the electronic (and often-updated) version of the Catalog which appears in the book.

The WWW Virtual Library

The Virtual Library is organized as a list of subjects, each of which contains pointers of resources on the web related to that topic. It is maintained by the W3 Consortium, the international organization which oversees the development of the protocols and standards which make the WWW possible.

The W3 List of Servers

This is a fairly comprehensive list of all of the web servers in the world, organized geographically. If you are looking for information from or about a particular part of the world, this is an excellent place to start. There's even a click-able world map which lets you point-n-click your way around the globe. The list of servers is maintained by the W3 Consortium.

Virtual Shareware Library

This index combines almost 100 of the best archives of free-ware/share-ware programs that are available on the Internet. Whether you're using Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, OS/2, Novell, Amiga, or Atari, this is the best place to search for software. You can search file descriptions in addition to file names, which makes it considerably more useful than Archie.

The Consummate WINSOCK Application List

If you're using MS Windows 3.1, 3.11, '95, or NT, this is the place to find network-aware application programs. You'll find the latest versions of e-mail programs, news-readers, Web Browsers, telnet, FTP, etc. All of the applications are reviewed and ranked by the maintainers of the page. There's a backup site if the one above is too busy.

Jumbo!

This share-ware archive is organized by subject (utilities, graphics, business, etc.). The page's description pretty much speaks for itself: The Biggest, Most Mind-Boggling, Most Eye-Popping, Most Death-Defying Conglomeration of Free-ware and Share-ware Programs on the Known-Web!

ArchiePlex

This is a World Wide Web interface to Archie, maintained by NASA. This is only as useful as Archie is (i.e. not very). However, if you do use Archie, then you might enjoy using this web interface to it so that you don't have to run a separate Archie client program when you want to do a search.