Metasearch Engines

It now seems like the whole world uses Google as their default search engine - and why not? With features such as image-specific searches, maps, and even the ability to search only for scholarly articles, I believe Google has earned their reputation as the #1 search engine with their constant innovations and improvements.

Despite this, the fact is that different search engines often turn up different results, and we would be doing our students a disservice if we didn't help them find the widest range of helpful information possible. Now, we could have them use all 4 major search engines separately - but that's not necessary.

There's an easy way to search all of the top search engines at one time, and the device that does it is called a metasearch engine. My personal favorite is Dogpile, with its uncluttered main page and options for regular searches as well as image and video-specific ones. In addition, Dogpile has some great information about metasearch engines and their advantages.

Teaching your students about metasearch engines can make their searches for relevant information easier, as well as helping them save time by using one instead of searching seperately on each major search engine.