It is a fact that Google has been doing so much to make information accessible but monopoly has never been good. So, the first thing you can do, if you cannot find the stuff you need via Google, is to try a different search engine. Since the databases of the search engines differ, it is likely that if you cannot find it with Google, you might be able to find it with Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, or another search engine. Even if this does not lead to the desired result, do not give up – there are many other tools to use when hunting for information.
Well, the alternatives that exist might not be as easy as a Google search and they might remind you of the pre-Google times but the results that you can retrieve through them can be very rewarding. The alternatives (both for users and for site owners) include:
- Specialized search engines
- Specialized search directories
- Meta search engines
- Invisible Web databases
- Specialized portals
- Reference libraries
The list is by no means complete but it gives you an idea where you can go to search for the stuff you need and where to submit your site, if you are a site owner. For both categories – users and site owners – relying solely on Google is not a viable idea. For users it means that vast amounts of information are practically unaccessible for you and for site owners relying only on Google to generate traffic to your site (unless you manage to top the search results on many keywords – but it is a different topic) is pretty risky – you never know when Google will change its algorithm for calculating relevancy and you might drop from the top. So in both cases you need to know about the alternatives you have.