About Search Engines
Thumbshots Ranking
http://ranking.thumbshots.com/
Website which illustrates how different search results can be across the six ‘top’ search engines, graphing the percentages of linked results compared to unique results.
bing vs Google
http://www.bing-vs-google.com/
Website that searches bing and Google and then presents the results of the searches side by side.
Google's algorithm
http://gizmodo.com/5477889/inside-googles-secret-search-algorithm
A highly readable description of how Google does what it does so well.
10 search engines to explore the deep end of the invisible web
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-search-engines-explore-deep-invisible-web/
A few tools that go where the major search engines don't.
Guides and Cheat Sheets
Google
cheat sheet
http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/help/cheatsheet.html
A
useful document full of precision Google search strategies that can be
printed out for ready reference.
6 ways to reduce irrelevant results on Google search
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-ways-reduce-irrelevant-results-google-search/
This article shows 6 ways to reduce irrelevant hits, so
that you get better overall search results.
Guidebook to Internet Searching by Dean Sherwin
http://manuals.makeuseof.com.s3.amazonaws.com/MakeUseOf.com_-_Searching.pdf
A
free 39-page book offering tips on where and how to search the web for
information, documents, images, people,videos, etc.
Online Research Guides at SLV
http://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/
Guides to researching various topics, e.g. bushfires, court cases, Australian companies, patents and census information.
Newspaper Archives
Australian Historical Newspapers 1803-1954
http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home
The Australian
Newspapers service allows access to historic Australian newspapers
digitized as part of the National Library's Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program.
Google News Archive
http://news.google.com/archivesearch/advanced_search
Provides a way to search and explore historical archives.
Australian content includes The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. In addition to searching for the most relevant
articles for their query, users
can also see a historical overview of the results by
browsing an automatically
generated timeline.
Archived Web Pages
Pandora
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/
Australia's Web Archive, is a growing collection of Australian online
publications, established initially by the National Library of Australia
in 1996, and now built in collaboration with nine other Australian
libraries and cultural collecting organisations.
Internet Archive -
Wayback Machine
http://www.archive.org/
The
Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that was founded to build
an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access to
historical collections that exist in digital format. Its collections
includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. Archived web pages
are found with The Wayback Machine.
Domain Names & Web Crawling
Robots.txt
http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html
Excellent
overview of the robots.txt file
that web site owners use to give instructions about their site to web
robots or crawlers. Essentially, it tells the crawler which directories
and file types that it cannot index.
ausregistry.com
http://www.ausregistry.com.au/
Search
for Australian web name registration details. Provides date, registrar
and registrant names and contact details.
DNSstuff.com
http://www.dnsstuff.com
“Our
mission is to help you resolve and avoid DNS issues. For years, we’ve
provided a suite of free testing tools that have made our site one of
the most popular and relied upon and linked-to destinations on the
Internet – one that receives millions of hits every day.”
Norid: Domain name
registries around the world
http://www.norid.no/domenenavnbaser/domreg.html
The
list contains the English country name and name of the generic top
level domains according to IANA's list. The link takes you to the
registry of the TLD.
Miscellaneous Information Resources
Docuticker
http://www.docuticker.com
Offers a hand-picked selection of resources, reports and publications from government agencies, NGOs, think tanks and other public interest organizations.
Resourceshelf
http://www.resourceshelf.com
Closely
related to Docuticker, Resourceshelf is “where dedicated librarians and
researchers share the results of their directed (and occasionally
quirky) web searches for resources and information…updated daily by an
editorial team”
Teacher Tube
http://www.teachertube.com
Launched in March 2007, this website takes the sharing, production, and community-building aspects of Youtube and offers an educator's version. According to its founders, "We seek to fill a need for a more. educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners."
Science Hack
http://sciencehack.com
This is a search engine for science videos. What makes it unique is that every video is screened by a scientist or an engineer to verify the its accuracy and quality. It focuses on many topics including physics, chemistry and biology. Sciencehack has none the spam videos, low quality videos and inane comments frequently found on Youtube.
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