Searching the Web
Volume 32, Number 2, December 2004
With Specialty Search Engines
Holly Gunn
A specialty search engine, sometimes called a topical or vertical search engine, searches a specially-created database limited to a particular subject. Specialty search engines fall into two main categories: service or subject-specific. Specialty service search engines provide services that are often not available from larger general search engines. Subject-specific search engines search a database tailored to a particular subject. Depending on your area of interest and the type of information you are seeking, specialty search engines can provide more relevant results more quickly than a general purpose search engine such as Google or Yahoo.
Service search engines
Examples of service search engines include Canada411,Canada Post Postal Code and United States Postal Code Look-up.
Topical search engines
Subject-specific specialty search engines are useful reference tools in their subject area. Examples of subject-specific search engines of interest to K-12 users include:
- A9 is a search engine from Amazon.com. It includes search results from Google and Amazon, including Amazon’s “Search inside a Book.” Search results can be limited to those from the Amazon database or the Web. If you are seeking information about books, A9 is a place to go. If you have an Amazon account, A9 maintains your search history. A9’s toolbar includes a diary allowing you to make notations about web sites. When you return to a site for which you have made an entry, the diary comments are available. See also A9 toolbar and 7 Reasons to use A9.
- Find Sounds locates sounds for animals, birds, insects, people, office, household items and holidays, as well as a miscellaneous assortment of sounds. Specific sounds can be searched by file type (AIFF, WAV, and AU), channel, resolution, rate and file size.
- The LawEngine is an award-winning directory and search engine for all things legal.
- MRQE Movie Review Query Engine is a comprehensive database of movie reviews from newspapers and magazines. Reviews can be sorted alphabetically or by rating, and the database can be searched by title or by recent releases.
- Scirus , a comprehensive science search engine that filters out non-scientific sites, earned the Best Specialty Search Engine Award from Search Engine Watch in 2001 and 2002. Scirus results can be limited to either Web or journal sources. See its advanced searching interface .
- SearchEdu.com which searches over 20 million sites in the education domain.
- Singingfish is an audio and video search engine that searches a database of streaming data sources.
Some specialty search engines are maintained by not-for-profit groups who provide quality web sites in their designated subject area. One such engine is Medhunt,which searches a database comprised of trustworthy medical sites maintained by the Health on the Net Foundation.
Other specialty search engines are a combination of service and topical research. Topiz.net, which provides a current news service from a variety of sources, is one example.
There are a myriad of specialty search engines tailored to a variety of specific subject areas. Because these databases are limited to specific subjects or a particular task, they can often save hours of searching on a general search engine.
Check these collections of specialty search engines to locate a specialty search engine in your area of interest:
Holly Gunn is the teacher-librarian at Sackville
High School, Nova Scotia. She can be reached at hgunn@accesscable.net.
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