search engine Archives

The internet is like a world onto itself. There are alleys that you do not want to end up on, and more importantly, you do not want kids to end up being exposed to-especially as a teacher or a parent. Google is the undisputed king of search, and you want to allow students to master this power tool from as early an age as possible. Google believes in offering things with a free alternative. Therefore, why not create a child safe search engine for free using the poser of Google? Also, see my previous entry on how to use Google like a pro. You can allow your students or children to do research online, using Google, by creating your very own custom search engine in 3 easy steps. Following the steps outlined below, and you can even make it fun for the kids. Why not make a personal search engine for the entire family or school? Remember by default Google will operate under “Safe Search” which will not return adult themed websites, but the purpose of this post is to really create your own search engine. Let’s get cracking!

Step 1

Navigate to https://www.google.com/cse/ and login with your Google email credentials. If you do not have an account you will be required to setup a Gmail account to gain access.

Step 2

Compile a list of all the websites that you would like your kids to explore on their own, and enter them into the appropriate area as shown in the picture above. How about having the kids compile a list of all the websites that they like? You can always add more sites in the future. From the picture you can see that I am going to be searching a few sites including AccuTeach and PBSKids.

Step 3

Click create and grab the script that you will place on your personal website or blog in a location that has high visibility. That is it, you have just created your personal search engine. You may opt out of seeing ads by paying Google $100 per year.

I have a surprise for you folks. Google is not the only search engine. I love Google and the various services it provides. Actually, this blog is mostly written in my Chrome browser. Below, I have compiled a list of the best search engines. It is always a good idea to experiment with search engines and to see the one that displays results that meets your needs. This will allow you to best gauge how they work and how they can best be utilized. Some search engines that were once really popular were intentionally left off this list, such as Altavista and Ask.com (AskJeeves), perfect examples of the effect of Google’s search dominance. Altavista.com has been taken over by Yahoo and Ask appears to be in disarray. It appears as though they are going full speed ahead as a question and answer website that offers search.

Google

I am just adding Google to this list just for naming sake. Google is king of algorithm based search and they know that very well. It is hard to escape their power and influence over the internet.[visit]

Wikipedia

I don’t think that I need to explain what Wikipedia is all about. Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia that allows anyone to write articles about any topic or contribute your very own. You can also see Wikipedia’s data on many websites.[visit]

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that allows you to search the web and has made themselves famous for not tracking you while you use their service. [visit]

Blekko

Blekko is a search engine that is famous for their slash (/) searches and the return of spam free search results. The search results returned by Blekko are a combination of their users and the algorithm that they use to retrieve that information. [visit]

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is more than just a search engine. I would classify this application as more of a knowledge engine. You can see my full review of Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha can carry out many complex calculations based on your search terms.[visit]

Bing

Microsoft is really trying hard to win market share from Google. They currently provide points to you when you use their search engine and they have Facebook integrated so that you can get search recommendations from your friends.[visit]

Start Page

Start Page is a very secure search engine that uses the power of Google to, in their words, “enhance” your search results. A cool feature of Blekko is that you can choose to go through a proxy server to access the returned pages. [visit]

Ixquick

Ixquick is a search engine that owns and operates Start Page. The main difference with the search results here is that Google’s search engine is not involved in this case. [visit]

Yippy

Yippy’s an unconventional search engine that aims to capitalize on some of the more popular search engines, such as Google and Bing’s perceived weaknesses. Yippy claims that they will not sell your personal data to advertisers and the search results are categorized. Yippy, in their terms and service, claims that they have blocked over 4.8 million websites that they deem, “undesirable sites.”[visit]

Yahoo

Believe it or not, Yahoo is also a search engine. Yahoo’s search engine is still widely used. However, the search they provide is no where near as popular as it used to be in Yahoo’s hay-day.[visit]

Mahalo

Mahalo is a non traditional search engine. Mahaloo actually hires individuals to create their own content. Consequently, you should take that into mind when you utilize their services. I would suggest that you pay special attention to the categories that they have covered.[visit]

Archive.org

If you utlize the services of Alexa.com you will see that Amazon utilizes the resources of Archive.org and strongly supports their work. Archive.org is great because it basically creates a timeline of the entire web. You can also look up what your favorite sites looked like before their current look and feel. Take a look at Google back in the late 1990’s. [visit]

Mamma

Mamma’s tag line is “The Mother Of All Search Engines.” Mamma was started in 2006 and today continues to be a pretty good search engine.[visit]

Gigablast

Gigablast as a search engine company prides them-self as a green search engine, utilizing wind to generate 90% of the energy needs for their servers to deliver your search results. This may be a good way for you to show your support for going green. Many popular search engines and websites utilize the commercial services of Gigablast to power search on their websites. Gigablast also makes it very easy to add their search form to your own website. [visit]

Ecosia

Ecostasia is being mentioned here for two main reasons. Their searches are powered or enhanced by Bing and mainly for the fact that they donate 80% of ad revenue supplied by Yahoo.[visit]

Dogpile

Dogpile is probably the most popular search aggregator out here right now. I decided to include them because of the level of customization that that they allow users to do. Some of the features that they include are, but not limited to, bold search results and the ability to determine the order in which search results are displayed.[visit]

Volunia

Volunia is a social search engine, a little creepy to be honest, that tries to allows users to bring their data to enhance search results. This is pretty much what Microsoft or Google is trying to do with the data that you provide when you “like” or “+1’d” search when you are searching with Bing or Google respectively. Look out for more organizations that aggregate that data from you and your friends to “help” you find what you are looking for, or at least try to predict what they think that you will want to know.[visit]

YouTube Search

Twitter Search

When it comes to up-to-the-minute information you cannot miss if you search Twitter. Twitter in my personal opinion, is a glorified RSS feed with a social component. Therefore, people will quickly share publicly available information on Twitter making it a great source to finding up to the minute information.[visit]

Personally, my favorite is DuckDuckgo when I am researching topics that are well established. When I am looking for current information, or anything else, I use Google and sometimes crosscheck the results with DuckDuckGo or Blekko. What do you think about this list of search engines? Who should be on this list or who should not be on the list?