Invisible Web

Invisible Web

Don Descy

Presentation available at - descy.net

Directories – are created by
people, categorized by hand, which means there are inconsistencies

Yahoo is one of the most famous directories

Open Directories – HotBot, Lycos,LookSmart

New Hartford, MN – Mankato site – false site

Search engines are different – quantity over quality, location on list may be paid. The list is
created by “spiders” that categorize pages by the words on them, which means they don't think about the content. More likely to index sites with more links to them, tends to focus on US and
commercial sites.

Google is the most popular search engine with Teoma coming in second.

Databases do not show up on regular searches because the the search of the database is dynamic – that is, the page doesn't exist until you put in the search terms.
Many also require logins or passwords to prevent the spiders from going in.

Sites to check

Librarians' Index to the Internet – http://www.lii.org/

Compiled by librarians and very good.

About - http://www.about.com/
2,400,000 resources
Resource Discovery Network – http://www.rdn.ac.uk/
Database of databases

ProFusion – http://www.profusion.com/
The invisible web catalog, a quick search, sorted alphabetically or scored Have a savable search group.

http://Www.invisible-web.net/ – a databases, mostly for medical

IncyWincy - http://www.incywincy.com/
Mostly for kids, about 10,000 databases

Complete Planet -http://www.completeplanet.com/
Does research on the invisible web,
70,000 searchable databases

Infomine - scholarly internet resource collections

Academic Info – Educational Subject Directory

Direct Search – www.freepint.com/gary/direct
Although is hasn't been updated lately, but is suppose to be good.

What to do

Search several sites

Used the advanded search feature

Search the term “invisible web” for IW search site

Add “database” to Google/Yahoo search
Search several IW sites