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U.S. Government Information on the Web— Government Search Engines — |
Google
USGov.
This engine is a subsidiary of Google's general internet
search engine. It includes all governmental entities, federal and state, and the non-federal sites cannot be filtered out. This new update to the old "Google Unclesam" searches some .edu and .com domains that are associated with government entities, as well as all the .gov and .mil domains. It also offers personalization options so that you can put selected news feeds on the page.
USA.gov. The government's official portal/search site (formerly Firstgov.gov). You can go to information by broad topic, by type of action needed ( e.g., apply for grants, get a driver's license) as well as search. You can also specify a particular audience (e.g.: kids, seniors, military, etc.). Includes links to state government sites when appropriate, and their advanced search page allows you to zero in on a particular state or look in federal sites only. All federal sites are searched, including those with "odd" domains. A useful feature on the site is the clustering options available on the left side of search results screens. Results can be clustered by topic or agency.
Yahoo
Government.
Category includes a lot of
sites that are not officially governmental, but of related interest, such
as those in the fields of politics, etc. Includes states and other countries.
Remember that to search only in the Government Category, you need to
change the dot from "the Web " to "this category."
Searching
for Information by Subject on the World Wide
Web. This guide describes
Web search engines in general, with tips, connections to many general search
engines and comparisons. Thanks to Diane Duesterheoft, Blume Library Reference Librarian, for this informative
page.
SearchGov.com. This page provides links to agencies, state government pages, and popular digital publications, as well as a search engine.