Beyond Google: 10 Specialty Search Engines

Google is deservedly the grand-daddy of search engines and they keep refining the service to make it even better. But when looking for something specific, there are specialty search engines that may better serve you. Here are 10 among the hoards of alternative search engines.

Images

1. Picsearch – Unique algorithm searches over 3 billion images. Perfect for fun, school, business and families.

2. Creative Commons – Need a license-free, no cost image for a blog post or presentation? Try this one-search access to images provided by other independent organizations.

3. IconArchive – A search engine with more than 330,000 icons for web developers, end users and graphic artists. Aren’t we all?

Social Media

4. Topsy – With Tweets indexed for more than three years, Topsy surfaces the most relevant search results in realtime based upon the social web. Also searches for photos and videos.

5. IceRocket – Searches for content across blogs, Twitter, and Facebook.

Travel

6. Skyscanner – Global travel search site, providing instant online comparisons for millions of flights on over a thousand airlines, as well as car hire, hotels, holidays and insurance.

7. Kayak – One search lets you compare hundreds of travel sites instantly. Choose from the list of results and book directly from the airline, hotel or car rental site. A long-time favorite.

Private

8. DuckDuckGo – An Internet search engine that uses information from crowdsourced websites such as Wikipedia to augment traditional results and improve relevance. Unlike other search engines, DuckDuckGo emphasizes privacy and does not record user information.

Research

9. Wolfram Alpha – A service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured, curated data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might

Legal

10. Quest – Search across the Law.com network of sites and the legal web, including hundreds of hand-picked law firm websites and legal blogs. A disappointingly basic search engine from a content-rich behemoth that should be offering something more robust. Still a good place to discover law related articles you may not find elsewhere.

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