10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

Written by Saikat Basu
March 14, 2010

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Your Web Traffic Today Might Be Hiding

<firstimage=”http://www.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/maze.png”
/>No, it’s not Spiderman’s latest web slinging
tool but something that’s more real world. Like
the World Wide Web.

The Invisible Web refers to the part of the WWW

that’s not indexed by the search engines. Most
of us think that that search powerhouses like
Google and Bing are like the Great Oracle”¦they see everything. Unfortunately,
they can’t because they aren’t divine at all; they are just web spiders who index
pages by following one hyperlink after the other.

But there are some places where a spider cannot enter. Take library databases
which need a password for access. Or even pages that belong to private networks
of organizations. Dynamically generated web pages in response to a query are
often left un-indexed by search engine spiders.

Search engine technology has progressed by leaps and bounds. Today, we have

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

real time search and the capability to index Flash based and PDF content. Even
then, there remain large swathes of the web which a general search engine cannot ✖
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penetrate. The term, Deep Net, Deep Web or Invisible Web lingers on.go
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To get a more precise idea of the nature of this “˜Dark Continent’ involving the
invisible and web search engines, read what Wikipedia has to say about the Deep
Web. The figures are attention grabbers – the size of the open web is 167
terabytes. The Invisible Web is estimated at 91,000 terabytes. Check this out – the
Library of Congress, in 1997, was figured to have close to 3,000 terabytes!

How do we get to this mother load of information?

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That’s what this post is all about. Let’s get to know a few resources which will be
our deep diving vessel for the Invisible Web. Some of these are invisible web
search engines with specifically indexed information.

Infomine

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

Infomine has been built by a pool of libraries in the United States. Some of them
are University of California, Wake Forest University, California State University,
and the University of Detroit. Infomine “˜mines’ information from databases,
electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library
card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other resources.

You can search by subject category and further tweak your search using the
search options. Infomine is not only a standalone search engine for the Deep Web
but also a staging point for a lot of other reference information. Check out its Other
Search Tools and General Reference links at the bottom.

The WWW Virtual Library

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

This is considered to be the oldest catalog on the web and was started by started
by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the web. So, isn’t it strange that it finds a place
in the list of Invisible Web resources? Maybe, but the WWW Virtual Library lists
quite a lot of relevant resources on quite a lot of subjects. You can go vertically
into the categories or use the search bar. The screenshot shows the alphabetical
arrangement of subjects covered at the site.

Intute

Intute is UK centric, but it has some of the most esteemed universities of the region

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

providing the resources for study and research. You can browse by subject or do a
keyword search for academic topics like agriculture to veterinary medicine. The
online service has subject specialists who review and index other websites that
cater to the topics for study and research.

Intute also provides free of cost over 60 free online tutorials to learn effective
internet research skills. Tutorials are step by step guides and are arranged around
specific subjects.

Complete Planet

Complete Planet calls itself the “˜front door to the Deep Web’. This free and well
designed directory resource makes it easy to access the mass of dynamic
databases that are cloaked from a general purpose search. The databases
indexed by Complete Planet number around 70,000 and range from Agriculture to
Weather. Also thrown in are databases like Food & Drink and Military.

For a really effective Deep Web search, try out the Advanced Search options
where among other things, you can set a date range.

Infoplease

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

Infoplease is an information portal with a host of features. Using the site, you can
tap into a good number of encyclopedias, almanacs, an atlas, and biographies.
Infoplease also has a few nice offshoots like Factmonster.com for kids and
Biosearch, a search engine just for biographies.

DeepPeep

DeepPeep aims to enter the Invisible Web through forms that query databases and
web services for information. Typed queries open up dynamic but short lived
results which cannot be indexed by normal search engines. By indexing
databases, DeepPeep hopes to track 45,000 forms across 7 domains.

The domains covered by DeepPeep (Beta) are Auto, Airfare, Biology, Book, Hotel,
Job, and Rental. Being a beta service, there are occasional glitches as some
results don’t load in the browser.

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

IncyWincy

IncyWincy is an Invisible Web search engine and it behaves as a meta-search

engine by tapping into other search engines and filtering the results. It searches
the web, directory, forms, and images. With a free registration, you can track
search results with alerts.

DeepWebTech

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

DeepWebTech gives you five search engines (and browser plugins) for specific
topics. The search engines cover science, medicine, and business. Using these
topic specific search engines, you can query the underlying databases in the Deep
Web.

Scirus

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

Scirus has a pure scientific focus. It is a far reaching research engine that can
scour journals, scientists’ homepages, courseware, pre-print server material,
patents and institutional intranets.

TechXtra

TechXtra concentrates on engineering, mathematics and computing. It gives you

industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text
eprints, teaching and learning resources along with articles and relevant website
information.

Just like general web search, searching the Invisible Web is also about looking for
the needle in the haystack. Only here, the haystack is much bigger. The Invisible
Web is definitely not for the casual searcher. It is a deep but not dark because if
you know what you are searching for, enlightenment is a few keywords away.

Do you venture into the Invisible Web? Which is your preferred search tool?

Image credit: MarcelGermain

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

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Comments (58) Write a Comment

Rob Reply
8 December, 2015

I use the following sites:

CLuuz.com, search.carrot2.org, qwant, addictomatic.com, arXiv.org, and others.

But these should get you started. You can use standard Google dorks here too.

Saikat Basu Reply

8 December, 2015

Thanks for those links. Most of them are clustering engines, but useful
nonetheless.

dan Reply
22 November, 2015

infomine are offline :(

John Ellerd Reply

12 November, 2015

I keep getting a message of invalid for my phone

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10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web

number????????????????????????

Gilbert Midonnet Reply

14 May, 2015

There are a lot of sites mentioned here that are now closed.

Saikat Reply
14 May, 2015

This article is five years old for God’s sake! :)

seekerofwisdom Reply
11 May, 2015

I went to Infomine and it’s offline permanently,just so you know to take it off the
list.

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