When do you NOT use Google?

Alternative search strategies

[Webwork]

Do you ever (shudder) have reasons for NOT using Google and choose to use another tool for hunting down information on the Web?

Have you found that there are categories of search that are more effectively performed using Web discovery tools other than Google? Who, what, when, where, why or how?

Do you ever use DMOZ? A niche directory or similar tool? Who, what, when, where, why or how?

[vincevincevince]

serial numbers are especially hard to find on Google. try a search for "microsoft money serial number" or your own choice of software... you'll find none of the top results contain the serial numbers you require.

Now try a search for the software title followed by FCKGW and witness an amazing thing happen

[TravelSite]

Sadly no - I use Google 100% (except when checking other sites).

I think for new people starting out that Ask.co.uk is very good (prefer the uk format to the .com one).

I do like Allthewebs advanced options, but still prefer Google. Its ability to do calculations (e.g. 12+122/5) in the search box is pretty nifty :) Its front page not as good as Googles - and seems a bit slower.

I also like Teomas interface - very clean and modern looking. I'd like it better than Googles front page - if they'd only have centered the search box (personal preference)! Think the colours are very nice on it. I don't agree fully with their clustering algorithms - but do respect the fact that they are trying to be different from Google - Altavista and most others seem to be trying to BE Google! Besides, I think its index is still a bit small.

[DaveN]

alltheweb : backlinks

dave

[bcolflesh]

I always wondered if "serial crack warez" etc, were good examples of Google manually altering search results, as actual relevancy seems to be non-existent for searches such as the one suggested by vincevincevince - I'm curious what terms are "bad" or trigger exceptions in the algorithm(s).

[TravelSite]

Forgot to mention Lycos.co.uk (NOT lycos.com) - nice all round portal appealing to a young market - with some nice humour to it. Looks very clean and crisp - as do the appearance of the search results. They just need to take more of their advertising inhouse - and replace their search results with Google!

[kmtell]

I actually used DMOZ when I was looking at the websites of companies similar to mine. Just go to the right directory and hit every link on the way down--worked great!

[new_BEE]

~~~alltheweb : backlinks
dave ~~~~~~~

I love them 2.....

[pchoate]

Google has top drawer features-

If you enter a listed phone number you get the address and links to maps.

If you enter an address you get links to maps.

The language tools are great. What else can I say?

[pchoate]

But now that I think of it, I miss DejaNews because it wasn't whitewashed. To be really useful Google also needs FTP search capabilities like ftpsearch.

[Rugles]

The only time I do not use Google is to check my ranking on the inferior SE's.

Is my bias showing?

[pchoate]

Oh yeah, how about meta-searches like DogPile and Profusion?

[Yidaki]

I often search for things that are related to a special software product, currently i search for unix or macosx related hints, bug inos and stuff ... speciality searches. Unfortunately some really good ressources (support forums) aren't indexed by google. Funny thing is: it's not google's fault - the databases are just not set up to get indexed by any crawler at all. ;) So i have to search using the local site search at these boards ...

I guess the only thing i search elsewhere is whois information - there are some good whois tools out there (Marcia!?) that return informations google doesn't have / publish.

I can live with Google's back link search - i'm not sooo hyped about my backlinks, though. ;)

[ALbino]

I don't know why, but I've always used Altavista for specific string queries like music lyrics or a quote. No idea why, but it just consistently seems to return better results for those searches.

[metagod]

if you are looking for serial numbers then google is the best resource, you have to use the google groups, and i promise you will find ANY serial you need...

oh and i dont use google when I can't find something, hardly ever or if i want/need more info..

[shaadi]

Vivisimo.com - Is the best alternative to Google.com

[vitaplease]

There are still reasons for not using Google:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[GrinninGordon]

It is easy, and I do not know why the likes of Yahoo do not capitalize more by making this suggestion to their surfers.

When to use a directory?

When your search term is for a generic / spam item such as "Blue Widgets". This helps to make sure Spam is kept out, as all the sites in the database get reviewed.

When to use a SE?

When your search term is for a specific item or piece of information, such as "Thomas Crappers Inventions". Because directories are unlikely to return any or many results.

[andrewrab]

Absolutley... in fact, the one service I've found that dramatically out-performs everything out there is VIVISIMO.com... I had stumbled across it a couple years ago when it was listed in Yahoo Life's top 50 sites or something... recently saw that it was founded by science guys at Carnegie Mellon... anyway, it uses 'document clustering' and on-the-fly organizes all the results (which they cull from everywhere, including, I think, Google) into its logical subcategories and you can click a folder manager looking frame to go from section to section of results. Only minor problem I've found is that, say, 1 in 25 searches gives me a javascript error (likely becaues of the frames) but that's probabaly because I screwed everything up once by loading SpyBot Search & Destroy.

While it doesn't help me with any SEO-specific stuff (a la Google), it consistently provides the most organized and precise results... and I HAVE compared it on a search-by-search basis to Google and it was WAY better...

Granted groups.google.com is arguably the most helpful search tool on the entire Internet... I use that all the time.... but that's for discussions.

Damn... I just saw that Shaadi beat me to the punch!

[nutsandbolts]

I tend to go directly to Overture and Espotting when I want to purchase something as I often prefer businesses that are willing to shell out a bit of dosh to promote their services/products. Kinda makes me trust them more. I'm a bit daft, really.

[Luke_SR]

Vivisimo and hotbot
Don't like hotbot ads on top but oh well.. sometiems it's a quick way to check few engines quickly for the same term.

[HitProf]

I like Ixquick meta search engine.

[bolitto]

Isn't vivisimo.com simply the best?

For the first time I really appreciated frames, the left suggestions and the results on the right, plus I love the name, much better than something resembling baby-speak ;) .

[Kirby]

Viva Vivisimo.com!

Just discovered it and already smitten.

[jesserud]

I use Alltheweb for four things:

1) Porn. I often do "list all pages from this site" if I find a page I like. Sometimes Google doesn't know about the site (yet?), but Alltheweb has several URLs.

2) Boosting my ego. Alltheweb tends to rank my sites slightly higher than Google does. Too bad I don't get any traffic from atw.

3) Counting backlinks. Google only shows PR4+ backlinks to PR4+ pages. Alltheweb shows them all.

4) Finding plain-text links. Alltheweb lets me search for pages that contain my URL as plain text but do not link to me. I e-mail the owners of those sites if I think they would be receptive to a request to hyperlink the URL.

[4serendipity]

Finding plain-text links. Alltheweb lets me search for pages that contain my URL as plain text but do not link to me. I e-mail the owners of those sites if I think they would be receptive to a request to hyperlink the URL.

Google lets you search for pages that contain URLs as plain text. Just type in a URL and you should see the following below the SERP.

Find web pages that contain the term "www.domain.com"

[Herenvardo]

I must confess that, even i didn't want to accept it some time ago, Google responds very well to the majority of the Web surfers. But there are still some that are not of this majority.
The strong point of Google is that it gives you many results, and it ranks them relatively well, thanks to PR.
But here it finishes: google is the tool to get the best tool for a search that returns so many results, but no more use.
When i search for something with precission, i use Altavista's advanced search: I love boolean expressions, they are the base of computers! In these cases I don't need g's PR to rank the results: my "precise" searchs are the ones that only generate 3-4 results, when the same search in G gives 200 or more. The reason is that g only takes 10 terms in the search string, ignoring the ones that are beyond, and my searches use 12 or more terms plus the boolean opeartors.
But remember that there is no a best tool: there are different tools with different where you should chose by your needs.

Herenvardo

[TravelSite]

Herenvardo - spot on with Googles annoying 10 word search limitation. This is the worst aspect of google. Some searches are so cluttered that you really need extra terms to search on. I often encounter this problem :(

[Herenvardo]

Travelsite:
Altavista is, from my viewpoint, the best option to precise search. If you need a search of more than 10 keywords or terms, try it. And if you're familiarized with boolean expressions, you'll love it! ;)
The only limit with it is your own kwonledge about what are you searching.
Beware: ranking in altavista is, by far, worse than Google. If a search there gives more than 20 results, you should add some terms to make it more precisse or try to use google.

[MarieC]

For most everything, I use Google. More and more lately I've been using Technorati and/or Feedster for blog related searches.