essay on search engine

Reference management. Clean and simple.

The top list of academic search engines

1. Google Scholar

4. science.gov, 5. semantic scholar, 6. baidu scholar, get the most out of academic search engines, frequently asked questions about academic search engines, related articles.

Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.

Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles
• Abstracts: only a snippet of the abstract is available
• Related articles: ✔
• References: ✔
• Cited by: ✔
• Links to full text: ✔
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, RIS, BibTeX

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany. That is also where its name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles (contains duplicates)
• Abstracts: ✔
• Related articles: ✘
• References: ✘
• Cited by: ✘
• Export formats: RIS, BibTeX

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open-access research papers. For each search result, a link to the full-text PDF or full-text web page is provided.

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles
• Links to full text: ✔ (all articles in CORE are open access)
• Export formats: BibTeX

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need anymore to query all those resources separately!

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles and reports
• Links to full text: ✔ (available for some databases)
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX (available for some databases)

Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. Its mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

• Coverage: approx. 40 million articles
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX

Although Baidu Scholar's interface is in Chinese, its index contains research papers in English as well as Chinese.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 100 million articles
• Abstracts: only snippets of the abstract are available
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX

RefSeek searches more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Its clean interface makes it especially easy to use for students and new researchers.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 1 billion documents
• Abstracts: only snippets of the article are available
• Export formats: not available

Consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Google Scholar is an academic search engine, and it is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only let's you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free, but also often provides links to full text PDF file.

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature developed at the Allen Institute for AI. Sematic Scholar was publicly released in 2015 and uses advances in natural language processing to provide summaries for scholarly papers.

BASE , as its name suggest is an academic search engine. It is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that's where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers. For each search result a link to the full text PDF or full text web page is provided.

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

Extended Essay: Search Engines, Repositories, & Directories

• Extended Essay- The Basics
• Step 1. Choose a Subject
• Step 2. Educate yourself!
• Using Brainstorming and Mind Maps
• Identify Keywords
• Do Background Reading
• Define Your Topic
• Conduct Research in a Specific Discipline
• Step 5. Draft a Research Question
• Step 6. Create a Timeline
• Find Articles
• Find Primary Sources
• Get Help from Experts
• Search Engines, Repositories, & Directories
• Databases and Websites by Subject Area
• Create an Annotated Bibliography
• Advice (and Warnings) from the IB
• Chicago Citation Syle
• MLA Works Cited & In-Text Citations
• Step 9. Set Deadlines for Yourself
• Step 10. Plan a structure for your essay
• Evaluate & Select: the CRAAP Test
• Conducting Secondary Research
• Conducting Primary Research
• Formal vs. Informal Writing
• Presentation Requirements
• Evaluating Your Work

Power Searching

Google is obviously one of the best known search engines, but are you making full use of all the features Google offers?  Find out more about how Google can be used from these help pages from Google Support:

Five Basic Search Tips from Google Using Search Operators, Punctuation, and Symbols to Get More Specific Search Results Finding Images, Videos, and Text That You Have Permission to Use Filtering Your Results from Web Searches and Image Searches Using Advanced Search When Looking for Websites or Images Understanding the Different Parts of the Google Search Results Page

Try using Advanced Search in Google to improve the relevancy of the results you get:

Advanced Search for Websites Advanced Search for Images

Try these specific searches in Google:

Search Engines

Search engines are programs that search documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found. Web search engines, like Google, Bing and Yahoo!, enable users to search for documents on the Internet.

Typically, web search engines work by sending out a spider to fetch as many documents as possible. Another program, called an indexer, then reads these documents and creates an index based on the words contained in each document. Each search engine uses a proprietary algorithm to create its indices such that, ideally, only meaningful results are returned for each query.

Metasearch engines

Meta search engines  are search engine tools that pass queries on to many other search engines and/or directories and then summarize all the results in one handy interface.

Search Directories

A search directory is a website in which links to information are organized by subject, and in alphabetical order, to make it easier for users to find the information they're seeking.

• << Previous: Get Help from Experts
• Next: Databases and Websites by Subject Area >>
• Last Updated: May 8, 2024 3:48 PM
• URL: https://libguides.westsoundacademy.org/ee

Google Essay for Students and Teacher

500+ words essay on google.

Google is named after the mathematical word “googol,” described as the value represented by one followed by 100 zeros. Google is the leading Internet search engine; its main service provides customers with targeted search outcomes chosen from over 8 billion web pages. Both Stanford dropouts, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed Google search technology from a college project. Thus, an insight into Google Essay discusses how Google works and came into existence.

Google is undoubtedly today’s most famous and interesting business in the globe. It’s the mission, according to its corporate website, is to “organize the data of the world and make it widely available and helpful” (Google, 2010).

Google ranked first in the annual “Best companies” of Fortune Magazine, winning other top businesses in 2007 and 2008 for two successive years. His performance as a top employer is due to his inner corporate culture the most quoted reason. Google is the ultimate global company and is defined as a “fast-paced, high-energy working setting” (Google, 2010).

Because Google is focused on its “young” internet-savvy market, its employees ‘ average age is significantly smaller than most businesses. Google’s median age is 30 and the distribution of sex is 65% male and 35% female (Linkedin, 2010).

The dress code is “casual” and laid-back because it values skill and hard work, not appearance. Google has a very engaging culture of the business. Also, Google Mountain View’s headquarters, CA called Googleplex, is intended to have a “campus-like” feel in tune with its predominantly young new recruits at the college level (Google, 2010).

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Google and Rivals

Microsoft and Yahoo both invest strongly in search technology and gain market share on an ongoing basis. 2. With few rivals like Yahoo and MSN, Google operates in an oligopoly sector.

Thus, Google may find it hard to maintain its customers with low differentiation within the consequence of the search engine. Also, Yahoo and MSN launch their own search engines and targeted marketing systems; Google is in a race to create fresh search instruments to attract customers and grow their marketing networks.

Click fraud mentioned by Google as one of the potential “concerns” that may influence its income. In reality, due to click fraud, Google confessed to frequently paying refunds.

In reality, due to click fraud, Google confessed to frequently paying refunds. Click fraud happens when an individual, automated script or computer program imitates a lawful user of a web browser clicking on an advertisement in order to generate an inappropriate charge per click in the online pay-per-click advertisement.

For instance, Network click fraud-you are hosting ads on your own private website from Google AdSense. Google charges you each time you click on your website’s ad. Its fraud if you sit on the desktop constantly clicking on the ad or writing a computer program that clicks on the ad constantly. Such fraud is simple for Google to spot, so smart network click fraudsters simulate distinct IP addresses, or install Trojan horses on pcs from other people to produce fake clicks.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

​​How to Master Academic Search Engines

4-minute read

• 4th August 2022

Academic search engines provide a simple, convenient method for finding scholarly literature (e.g., articles, books, and theses) across many topics. However, these databases provide access to, quite literally, millions of sources. Therefore, using them effectively is key to streamlining your research process and finding sources that will help you write a great research paper.

We’ve put together our five top tips on mastering academic search engines to help you get started:

1. Briefly summarize your research topic to prepare for your academic search.

2. Identify the keywords that you’ll use to generate focused and relevant search results.

3. Conduct advanced searches to further narrow your results.

4. Build personalized reading lists to keep your sources organized in one place.

5. Track and create your citations to make building your reference list easier.

Read on to look at these tips in more detail or watch the video.

1. Summarize Your Research Topic

Before conducting a search, it’s important to understand the topic and objective of your research in order to find relevant supporting sources. Try summarizing your research topic and/or questions into one or two concise sentences containing the most vital information, and then you’ll be ready for the next step!

2. Identify Your Keywords

Academic search engines work most effectively – and return more results – when you search keywords (i.e., words or short phrases) rather than full sentences. Once you’ve written your summary sentences, highlight the keywords and then put together a list of synonyms and other similar words or phrases that you could use as alternate search terms.

In addition to searching keywords, there are also some helpful hacks regarding the ways in which you search for those terms, such as with the use of Boolean operators :

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

●  “AND” indicates that you want the terms on both sides to be included in the sources.

●  “NOT” or the minus sign “-” can be placed in front of terms to exclude sources in which they are used.

●  “OR” will give equal weight to the sources that match the terms on either side.

●  Quote marks (“ ”) will generate only sources that include exact matches to the phrase placed within them.

3. Utilize Advanced Searches

Most academic search engines will have advanced search options, which are helpful to further refine your results. You can restrict your searches to fields such as the source author, title, publication, or date.

Also, if you find sources that are particularly useful, there are often “cited by” and “related articles” links that can lead you to additional relevant sources that may be beneficial to your research.

4. Build Personalized Reading Lists

Locating really great sources during the research process is only half the battle! It’s also equally important to stay organized. Fortunately, many academic search engines also offer tools to help you create personalized reading lists, which you can use to sort your sources by topic or research project.

You can also sign up to receive alerts when new sources become available in particular publications, from your favorite authors, or on any topics of interest!

5. Track and Create Your Citations

Whenever you quote or reference another person’s work in your own writing, it’s crucial to acknowledge those authors using citations . Your personalized reading lists can be a great way to track the sources you want to cite in your work, and many academic search engines allow you to either export those lists into a reference management tool or can generate the citations for you according to your required referencing system (e.g., APA, MLA, or Harvard).

Proofreading and Editing Services

Hopefully, these hacks will help you master academic search engines to find the best sources during your research phase. Once you’ve moved on to compiling your research and presenting it in your essay or article , we have expert editors who can help ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and error-free, and that your references are consistent with your required system. You can upload a free trial document today to learn more!

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

How to Ace Slack Messaging for Contractors and Freelancers

Effective professional communication is an important skill for contractors and freelancers navigating remote work environments....

3-minute read

How to Insert a Text Box in a Google Doc

Google Docs is a powerful collaborative tool, and mastering its features can significantly enhance your...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Home — Essay Samples — Information Science and Technology — Computers — Search Engine

Essays on Search Engine

Things that you should take into account when choosing the right seo agency in surrey, search engine optimization roanoke, va, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Case Analysis on Larry Page and Google Search Engine

Study of two stroke and four stroke engine, case analysis of google knol failure, the evolution of the heat engine system, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Corporate Culture: Google Case Analysis

Search engine traffic for low ranking blogs, effective global business: analysis of google case, white hat seo and black hat seo, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

Rhetorical "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicolas Carr

Why finding the best ecommerce seo company is vital for your business, effective techniques to solve shopify seo problems, the difference between baidu and google, outdated ceo techniques to avoid today, effective use of search engines, case study: google search engine, relevant topics.

• Digital Era
• Computer Science
• Virtual Reality
• Cyber Security
• Application Software
• Net Neutrality
• Computer Security
• Computer Programming

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

A free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature

• Geneviève Rousselière
• Roman Empire

New & Improved API for Developers

Introducing semantic reader in beta.

Stay Connected With Semantic Scholar Sign Up What Is Semantic Scholar? Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature, based at the Allen Institute for AI.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

• Search Engine Users
• Part 7. Conclusions

Table of Contents

• Part 1. Introduction
• Part 2. What people seek with search engines
• Part 3. Who we are as searchers: confident and satisfied
• Part 4. The searcher and his search engine
• Part 5. Is users’ trust in search engines blind?
• Part 6. Some demographic differences: gender and age
• Methodology

Conclusions

Search engines offer users vast and impressive amounts of information, available with a speed and convenience few people could have imagined one decade ago. Their capabilities are expanding practically by the day. Soon it will seem routine to be able to search the contents of vast libraries of books; to find selected portions of video streams or audio recordings; to benefit from personalized searches that remember a user’s preferences and keep track of changing geographical locations. Audio searching and search results will be available for the blind; “implicit searching” will anticipate users’ queries and have answers ready.

Today’s internet users are very positive about what search engines already do, and they feel good about their experiences when searching the internet. They say they are comfortable and confident as searchers and are satisfied with the results they find. They trust search engines to be fair and unbiased in returning results. And yet, people know little about how engines operate, or about the financial tensions that play into how engines perform their searches and how they present their search results. Furthermore, searchers largely don’t notice or understand or discern the different kinds of search results that are being served up to them.

This odd situation, in which a growing population of users relies on technology most of them don’t understand, highlights the responsibility placed on search engine companies. They are businesses, in many cases extremely successful ones – but their effects on society are far more than merely commercial. One unexpected implication of our study is that search engines are attaining the status of other institutions – legal, medical, educational, governmental, journalistic – whose performance the public judges by unusually high standards, because the public is unusually reliant on them for principled performance.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivery Saturday mornings

Sign up for The Briefing

Weekly updates on the world of news & information

• Online Search

When Online Content Disappears

A majority of americans have heard of chatgpt, but few have tried it themselves, americans turn to technology during covid-19 outbreak, say an outage would be a problem, most americans rely on their own research to make big decisions, and that often means online searches, most americans support right to have some personal info removed from online searches, most popular.

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

© 2024 Pew Research Center

• Get started with computers
• Learn Microsoft Office
• Apply for a job
• Improve my work skills
• Design nice-looking docs
• Getting Started
• Smartphones & Tablets
• Typing Tutorial
• Online Learning
• Basic Internet Skills
• Online Safety
• Social Media
• Zoom Basics
• Google Docs
• Google Sheets
• Career Planning
• Resume Writing
• Cover Letters
• Job Search and Networking
• Business Communication
• Entrepreneurship 101
• Careers without College
• Job Hunt for Today
• 3D Printing
• Freelancing 101
• Personal Finance
• Sharing Economy
• Decision-Making
• Graphic Design
• Photography
• Image Editing
• Learning WordPress
• Language Learning
• Critical Thinking
• For Educators
• Translations
• Staff Picks
• English expand_more expand_less

Internet Basics  - Using Search Engines

Internet basics  -, using search engines, internet basics using search engines.

Internet Basics: Using Search Engines

Lesson 8: using search engines.

/en/internetbasics/downloading-and-uploading/content/

Using search engines

With billions of websites online today, there is a lot of information on the Internet. Search engines make this information easier to find. Let's look at the basics of using a search engine , as w ell as some techniques you can use to get better search results .

Watch the video below to learn more about searching the Web.

How to search the Web

There are many different search engines you can use, but some of the most popular include Google , Yahoo! , and Bing . To perform a search, you'll need to navigate to a search engine in your web browser, type one or more keywords —also known as search terms —then press Enter on your keyboard. In this example, we'll search for recipes .

After you run a search, you'll see a list of relevant websites that match your search terms. These are commonly known as search results . If you see a site that looks interesting, you can click a link to open it. If the site doesn't have what you need, you can simply return to the results page to look for more options.

Most browsers also allow you to perform a web search directly from your address bar , although some have a separate search bar next to the address bar. Simply type your search terms and press Enter to run the search.

Search suggestions

If you don't find what you're looking for on the first try, don't worry! Search engines are good at finding things online, but they're not perfect. You'll often need to try different search terms to find what you're looking for.

If you're having trouble thinking of new search terms, you can use search suggestions instead. These will usually appear as you're typing, and they're a great way to find new keywords you might not have tried otherwise. To use a search suggestion, you can click it with your mouse, or select it with the arrow keys on your keyboard.

Refining your search

If you're still having trouble finding exactly what you need, you can use some special characters to help refine your search. For example, if you want to exclude a word from a search, you can type a hyphen ( - ) at the beginning of a word. So if you wanted to find cookie recipes that don't include chocolate, you could search for recipes cookies -chocolate .

You can also search for exact words or phrases to narrow down your results even more. All you need to do is place quotation marks ( " " ) around the desired search terms. For example, if you search for recipes "sugar cookies" , your search results will only include recipes for sugar cookies, instead of any cookies that happen to use sugar as an ingredient.

These techniques may come in handy in certain cases, but you probably won't need to use them with most searches. Search engines can usually figure out what you're looking for without these extra characters. We recommend trying a few different search suggestions before using this method.

Content-specific searches

There may be times when you're looking for something more specific, like a news article , picture , or video . Most search engines have links at the top of the page that allow you to perform these unique searches.

In the example below, we've used the same search terms to look for images instead of websites. If you see an image you like, you can click to visit the website it originally came from.

You can use the extra search tools to narrow down your results even more. These tools will change based on the type of content you're looking for, but in this example we can filter our images by size , color , image type , and more. So if you wanted to find cookies with pink frosting, you could search for images that are mostly pink.

Advertisements

One final thing to note: Most search engines include advertisements with search results. For example, you can see advertisements at the top of the search results below.

These ads are based on your search terms, and they often look similar to other search results. While they may be useful in some cases, it's usually more helpful to focus on the actual search results.

For even more search tips, check out our Search Better tutorial.

/en/internetbasics/understanding-urls/content/

28 Best Academic Search Engines That make your research easier

This post may contain affiliate links that allow us to earn a commission at no expense to you. Learn more

If you’re a researcher or scholar, you know that conducting effective online research is a critical part of your job. And if you’re like most people, you’re always on the lookout for new and better ways to do it. 

I’m sure you are familiar with some research databases. But, top researchers keep an open mind and are always looking for inspiration in unexpected places. 

This article aims to give you an edge over researchers that rely mainly on Google for their entire research process.

Our list of 28 academic search engines will start with the more familiar to less.

Table of Contents

#1. Google Scholar

Google Scholar is an academic search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines.

Great for academic research, you can use Google Scholar to find articles from academic journals, conference proceedings, theses, and dissertations. The results returned by Google Scholar are typically more relevant and reliable than those from regular search engines like Google.

Tip: You can restrict your results to peer-reviewed articles only by clicking on the “Scholarly”

• Scholarly results are typically more relevant and reliable than those from regular search engines like Google.
• You can restrict your results to peer-reviewed articles only by clicking on the “Scholarly” tab.
• Google Scholar database Coverage is extensive, with approx. 200 million articles indexed.
• Abstracts are available for most articles.
• Related articles are shown, as well as the number of times an article has been cited.
• Links to full text are available for many articles.
• Abstracts are only a snippet of the full article, so you might need to do additional searching to get the full information you need.
• Not all articles are available in full text.

Google Scholar is completely free.

#2. ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) 

ERIC (short for educational resources information center) is a great academic search engine that focuses on education-related literature. It is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and produced by the Institute of Education Sciences. 

ERIC indexes over a million articles, reports, conference papers, and other resources on all aspects of education from early childhood to higher education. So, search results are more relevant to Education on ERIC. 

• Extensive coverage: ERIC indexes over a million articles, reports, and other resources on all aspects of education from early childhood to higher education.
• You can limit your results to peer-reviewed journals by clicking on the “Peer-Reviewed” tab.
• Great search engine for educators, as abstracts are available for most articles.

ERIC is a free online database of education-related literature. 

You might also like:

• SCI Journal: Science Journal Impact Factor
• 15 Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free
• 11 Best Academic Writing Tools For Researchers 2024
• 10 Best Reference Management Software for Research 2024
• Academic Tools

#3. Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is a “computational knowledge engine” that can answer factual questions posed in natural language. It can be a useful search tool. 

Type in a question like “What is the square root of 64?” or “What is the boiling point of water?” and Wolfram Alpha will give you an answer.

Wolfram Alpha can also be used to find academic articles. Just type in your keywords and Wolfram Alpha will generate a list of academic articles that match your query.

Tip: You can restrict your results to peer-reviewed journals by clicking on the “Scholarly” tab.

• Can answer factual questions posed in natural language.
• Can be used to find academic articles.
• Results are ranked by relevance.
• Results can be overwhelming, so it’s important to narrow down your search criteria as much as possible.
• The experience feels a bit more structured but it could also be a bit restrictive

Wolfram Alpha offers a few pricing options, including a “Pro” subscription that gives you access to additional features, such as the ability to create custom reports. You can also purchase individual articles or download them for offline use.

Pro costs $5.49 and Pro Premium costs $9.99

#4. iSEEK Education 

• 15 Best Websites To Download Research Papers For Free
• 30+ Essential Software For Researchers
• 15 Best Academic Research Trend Prediction Platforms
• 15 Best Academic Networking And Collaboration Platforms

iSEEK is a search engine targeting students, teachers, administrators, and caregiver. It’s designed to be safe with editor-reviewed content.

iSEEK Education also includes a “Cited by” feature which shows you how often an article has been cited by other researchers.

• Editor-reviewed content.
• “Cited by” feature shows how often an article has been cited by other researchers.
• Limited to academic content.
• Doesn’t have the breadth of coverage that some of the other academic search engines have.

iSEEK Education is free to use.

#5. BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that’s where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). 

Known as “one of the most comprehensive academic web search engines,” it contains over 100 million documents from 4,000 different sources. 

Users can narrow their search using the advanced search option, so regardless of whether you need a book, a review, a lecture, a video or a thesis, BASE has what you need.

BASE indexes academic articles from a variety of disciplines, including the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

• One of the world’s most voluminous search engines, 
• Indexes academic articles from a variety of disciplines, especially for academic web resources
• Includes an “Advanced Search” feature that lets you restrict your results to peer-reviewed journals.
• Doesn’t include abstracts for most articles.
• Doesn’t have related articles, references, cited by

BASE is free to use.

• 10 Best Reference Management Software for Research 2023
• 15 Best Academic Networking and Collaboration Platforms
• 30+ Essential Software for Researchers
• 15 Best Academic Blogging and Content Management 
• 11 Best Academic Writing Tools For Researchers

CORE is an academic search engine that focuses on open access research papers. A link to the full text PDF or complete text web page is supplied for each search result. It’s academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers.

• Focused on open access research papers.
• Links to full text PDF or complete text web page are supplied for each search result.
• Export formats include BibTeX, Endnote, RefWorks, Zotero.
• Coverage is limited to open access research papers.
• No abstracts are available for most articles.
• No related articles, references, or cited by features.

CORE is free to use.

• Best Plagiarism Checkers for Research Papers in 2024

#7. Science.gov

Science.gov is a search engine developed and managed by the United States government. It includes results from a variety of scientific databases, including NASA, EPA, USGS, and NIST. 

US students are more likely to have early exposure to this tool for scholarly research. 

• Coverage from a variety of scientific databases (200 million articles and reports).
• Links to full text are available for some articles.

Science.gov is free to use.

• 15 Best Academic Journal Discovery Platforms
• Sci Hub Review 

#8. Semantic Scholar

Semantic Scholar is a recent entrant to the field. Its goal is to provide more relevant and effective search results via artificial intelligence-powered methods that detect hidden relationships and connections between research topics.

• Powered by artificial intelligence, which enhances search results.
• Covers a large number of academic articles (approx. 40 million).
• Related articles, references, and cited by features are all included.
• Links to full text are available for most articles.

Semantic Scholar is free to use.

• 11 Best Academic Writing Tools For Researchers 
• 10 Best Reference Management Software for Research 
• 15 Best Academic Journal Discovery Platforms 

#9. RefSeek

RefSeek searches more than five billion documents, including web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers.

This is one of the free search engines that feels like Yahoo with a massive directory. It could be good when you are just looking for research ideas from unexpected angles. It could lead you to some other database that you might not know such as the CIA The World Factbook, which is a great reference tool.

• Searches more than five billion documents.
• The Documents tab is very focused on research papers and easy to use.
• Results can be filtered by date, type of document, and language.
• Good source for free academic articles, open access journals, and technical reports.
• The navigation and user experience is very dated even to millenials…
• It requires more than 3 clicks to dig up interesting references (which is how it could lead to you something beyond the 1st page of Google)
• The top part of the results are ALL ads (well… it’s free to use)

RefSeek is free to use.

#10. ResearchGate 

A mixture of social networking site + forum + content databases where researchers can build their profile, share research papers, and interact with one another.

Although it is not an academic search engine that goes outside of its site, ResearchGate ‘s library of works offers an excellent choice for any curious scholar.

There are more than 100 million publications available on the site from over 11 million researchers. It is possible to search by publication, data, and author, as well as to ask the researchers questions. 

• A great place to find research papers and researchers.
• Can follow other researchers and get updates when they share new papers or make changes to their profile.
• The network effect can be helpful in finding people who have expertise in a particular topic.
• Interface is not as user friendly
• Can be overwhelming when trying to find relevant papers.
• Some papers are behind a paywall.

ResearchGate is free to use.

• 15 Best Academic Research Trend Prediction Platforms 
• 25 Best Tools for Tracking Research Impact and Citations

#11. DataONE Search (formerly CiteULike) 

A social networking site for academics who want to share and discover academic articles and papers.

• A great place to find academic papers that have been shared by other academics.
• Some papers are behind a paywall

CiteULike is free to use.

#12. DataElixir 

DataElixir is deigned to help you find, understand and use data. It includes a curated list of the best open datasets, tools and resources for data science.

• Dedicated resource for finding open data sets, tools, and resources for data science.
• The website is easy to navigate.
• The content is updated regularly
• The resources are grouped by category.
• Not all of the resources are applicable to academic research.
• Some of the content is outdated.

DataElixir is free to use.

#13. LazyScholar – browser extension

LazyScholar is a free browser plugin that helps you discover free academic full texts, metrics, and instant citation and sharing links. Lazy Scholar is created Colby Vorland, a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University.

• It can integrate with your library to find full texts even when you’re off-campus.
• Saves your history and provides an interface to find it.
• A pre-formed citation is availlable in over 900 citation styles.
• Can recommend you topics and scans new PubMed listings to suggest new papers
• Results can be a bit hit or miss

LazyScholar is free to use.

#14. CiteseerX – digital library from PenState

CiteseerX is a digital library stores and indexes research articles in Computer Science and related fields. The site has a robust search engine that allows you to filter results by date, author.

• Searches a large number of academic papers.
• Results can be filtered by date, author, and topic.
• The website is easy to use.
• You can create an account and save your searches for future reference.

CiteseerX is free to use.

• Surfer Review: Is It Worth It?
• 25 Best Tools For Tracking Research Impact And Citations

#15. The Lens – patents search 

The Lens or the Patent Lens is an online patent and scholarly literature search facility, provided by Cambia, an Australia-based non-profit organization.

• Searches for a large number of academic papers.

The price range can be free for non-profit use to $5,000 for commercial enterprise.

#16. Fatcat – wiki for bibliographic catalog 

Fatcat is an open bibliographic catalog of written works. The scope of works is somewhat flexible, with a focus on published research outputs like journal articles, pre-prints, and conference proceedings. Records are collaboratively editable, versioned, available in bulk form, and include URL-agnostic file-level metadata.

• Open source and collaborative
• You can be part of the community that is very focused on its mission
• The archival file-level metadata (verified digests and long-term copies) is a great feature.
• Could prove to be another rabbit hole
• People either love or hate the text-only interface

#17. Lexis Web – Legal database

Are you researching legal topics? You can turn to Lexis Web for any law-related questions you may have. The results are drawn from legal sites and can be filtered based on criteria such as news, blogs, government, and commercial. Additionally, users can filter results by jurisdiction, practice area, source and file format.

• Results are drawn from legal sites.
• Filters are available based on criteria such as news, blogs, government, and commercial.
• Users can filter results by jurisdiction, practice area, source and file format.
• Not all law-related questions will be answered by this search engine.
• Coverage is limited to legal sites only.

Lexis Web is free for up to three searches per day. After that, a subscription is required.

#18. Infotopia – part of the VLRC family

Infotopia touts itself as an “alternative to Google safe search.” Scholarly book results are curated by librarians, teachers, and other educational workers. Users can select from a range of topics such as art, health, and science and technology, and then see a list of resources pertaining to the topic. 

Consequently, if you aren’t able to find what you are looking for within Infotopia’s pages, you will probably find it on one of its many suggested websites.

#19. Virtual Learning Resources Center

Virtual Learning Resources Center (VLRC) is an academic search engine that features thousands of academic sites chosen by educators and librarians worldwide. Using an index generated from a research portal, university, and library internet subject guides, students and instructors can find current, authoritative information for school.

• Thousands of academic information websites indexed by it. You will also be able to get more refined results with custom Google search, which will speed up your research. 
• Many people consider VLRC as one of the best free search engines to start looking for research material. 
• TeachThought rated the Virtual LRC #3 in it’s list of 100 Search Engines For Academic Research
• More relevant to education 
• More relevant to students

Powered by Google Custom Search Engine (CSE), Jurn is a free online search engine for accessing and downloading free full-text scholarly papers. It was created by David Haden in a public open beta version in February 2009, initially for locating open access electronic journal articles in the arts and humanities.

After the indexing process was completed, a website containing additional public directories of web links to indexed publications was introduced in mid-2009. The Jurn search service and directory has been regularly modified and cleaned since then.

• A great resource for finding academic papers that are behind paywalls.
• The content is updated regularly.uren

Jurn is free to use.

#21. WorldWideScience

The Office of Scientific and Technical Information—a branch of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy—hosts the portal WorldWideScience , which has dubbed itself “The Global Science Gateway.”

Over 70 countries’ databases are used on the website. When a user enters a query, it contacts databases from all across the world and shows results in both English and translated journals and academic resources.

• Results can be filtered by language and type of resource
• Interface is easy to use
• Contains both academic journal articles and translated academic resources 
• The website can be difficult to navigate.

WorldWideScience is free to use.

#22. Google Books

A user can browse thousands of books on Google Books, from popular titles to old titles, to find pages that include their search terms. You can look through pages, read online reviews, and find out where to buy a hard copy once you find the book you are interested in.

#23. DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)

DOAJ is a free search engine for scientific and scholarly materials. It is a searchable database with over 8,000 peer-reviewed research papers organized by subject. It’s one of the most comprehensive libraries of scientific and scholarly resources, with over 8,000 journals available on a variety of themes.

#24. Baidu Scholar

Baidu Xueshu (Academic) is the Chinese version for Google Scholar. IDU Scholar indexes academic papers from a variety of disciplines in both Chinese and English.

• Articles are available in full text PDF.
• Covers a variety of academic disciplines.
• No abstracts are available for most articles, but summaries are provided for some.
• A great portal that takes you to different specialized research platform
• You need to be able to read Chinese to use the site
• Since 2021 there is a rise of focus on China and the Chinese Communist Party

Baidu Scholar is free to use.

#25. PubMed Central

PubMed is a free search engine that provides references and abstracts for medical, life sciences, and biomedical topics.

If you’re studying anything related to healthcare or science, this site is perfect. PublicMed Central is operated by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It contains more than 3 million full-text journal articles. 

It’s similar to PubMed Health, which focuses on health-related research and includes abstracts and citations to over 26 million articles.

#26. MEDLINE®

MEDLINE® is a paid subscription database for life sciences and biomedicine that includes more than 28 million citations to journal articles. For finding reliable, carefully chosen health information, Medline Plus provides a powerful search tool and even a dictionary.

• A great database for life sciences and biomedicine.
• Contains more than 28 million references to journal articles.
• References can be filtered by date, type of document, and language.
• The database is expensive to access.
• Some people find it difficult to navigate and find what they are looking for.

MEDLINE is not free to use ( pricing information ).

Defunct Academic Search Engines 

#27. microsoft academic  .

Microsoft Academic

Microsoft Academic Search seemed to be a failure from the beginning. It ended in 2012, then re-launched in 2016 as Microsoft Academic. It provides the researcher with the opportunity to search academic publications,

Microsoft Academic used to be the second-largest academic search engine after Google Scholar. Microsoft Academic provides a wealth of data for free, but Microsoft has announced that it will shut Microsoft Academic down in by 2022. 

#28. Scizzle

Designed to help researchers stay on top of the literature by setting up email alerts, based on key terms, for newspapers.

Unfortunately, academic search engines come and go. These are two that are no longer available.

Final Thoughts

There are many academic search engines that can help researchers and scholars find the information they need. This list provides a variety of options, starting with more familiar engines and moving on to less well-known ones. 

Keeping an open mind and exploring different sources is essential for conducting effective online research. With so much information at our fingertips, it’s important to make sure we’re using the best tools available to us.

Tell us in the comment below which academic search engine have you not heard of? Which database do you think we should add? What database do your professional societies use? What are the most useful academic websites for research in your opinion?

There is more.

Check out our other articles on the Best Academic Tools Series for Research below.

• Learn how to get more done with these Academic Writing Tools  
• Learn how to proofread your work with these Proofreading Tools
• Learn how to broaden your research landscape with these Academic Search Engines
• Learn how to manage multiple research projects with these Project Management Tools
• Learn how to run effective survey research with these Survey Tools for Research
• Learn how get more insights from important conversations and interviews with Transcription Tools
• Learn how to manage the ever-growing list of references with these Reference Management Software
• Learn how to double your productivity with literature reviews with these AI-Based Summary Generators
• Learn how to build and develop your audience with these Academic Social Network Sites
• Learn how to make sure your content is original and trustworthy with these Plagiarism Checkers
• Learn how to talk about your work effectively with these Science Communication Tools

10 thoughts on “28 Best Academic Search Engines That make your research easier”

Thank you so much Joannah..I have found this information useful to me as librarian in an academic library

You are welcome! We are happy to hear that!

Thank You Team, for providing a comprehensive list of academic search engines that can help make research easier for students and scholars. The variety of search engines included offers a range of options for finding scholarly articles, journals, and other academic resources. The article also provides a brief summary of each search engine’s features, which helps in determining which one is the best fit for a specific research topic. Overall, this article is a valuable resource for anyone looking for a quick and easy way to access a wealth of academic information.

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We are delighted to hear that you found our list of academic search engines helpful in making research easier for students and scholars. We understand the importance of having a variety of options when it comes to finding scholarly articles, journals, and other academic resources, and we strive to provide a comprehensive list of resources to meet those needs.

We are glad that you found the brief summary of each search engine’s features helpful in determining which one is the best fit for a specific research topic. Our goal is to make it easy for our readers to access valuable academic information and we’re glad that we were able to achieve that for you.

We appreciate your support and thank you for your kind words. We will continue to provide valuable resources for students and researchers in the future. Please let us know if you have any further questions or suggestions.

No more questions Thank You

I cannot thank you enough!!! thanks alot 🙂

Typography animation is a technique that combines text and motion to create visually engaging and dynamic animations. It involves animating individual letters, words, or phrases in various ways to convey a message, evoke emotions, or enhance the visual impact of a design or video. – Typography Animation Techniques Tools and Online Software {43}

Hi Joannah! Here’s another one you may want to add! Expontum ( https://www.expontum.com/ ) – Helps researchers quickly find knowledge gaps and identify what research projects have been completed before. Thanks!

Expontum – Helps researchers quickly find knowledge gaps and identify what research projects have been completed before. Expontum is free, open access, and available to all globally with no paid versions of the site. Automated processes scan research article information 24/7 so this website is constantly updating. By looking at over 35 million research publications (240 million by the end of 2023), the site has 146 million tagged research subjects and 122 million tagged research attributes. Learn more about methodology and sources on the Expontum About Page ( https://www.expontum.com/about.php )

Hey Ryan, I clicked and checked your site and thought it was very relevant to our reader. Thank you for sharing. And, we will be reviewing your site soon.

Sounds good! Thanks, Joannah!

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

We maintain and update science journals and scientific metrics. Scientific metrics data are aggregated from publicly available sources. Please note that we do NOT publish research papers on this platform. We do NOT accept any manuscript.

2012-2024 © scijournal.org

The biggest findings in the Google Search leak

O ne thing right off the bat: the Google Search algorithm has not leaked, and SEO experts don’t suddenly have all the answers. But the information that did leak this week — a collection of thousands of internal Google documents — is still huge. It’s an unprecedented look into Google’s inner workings that are typically closely guarded.

Perhaps the most notable revelation from the 2,500 documents is that they suggest Google representatives have misled the public in the past when discussing how the biggest gatekeeper of the internet assesses and ranks content for its search engine.

How Google ranks content is a black box: websites depend on search traffic to survive, and many will go to great lengths — and great expense — to beat out the competition and rise to the top of results. Better ranking means more website visits, which means more money. As a result, website operators hang on to every word Google publishes and each social media post by employees working on search. Their word is taken as gospel, which, in turn, trickles down to everyone using Google to find things.

Over the years, Google spokespeople have repeatedly denied that user clicks factor into ranking websites, for example — but the leaked documents make note of several types of clicks users make and indicate they feed into ranking pages in search. Testimony from the antitrust suit by the US Department of Justice previously revealed a ranking factor called Navboost that uses searchers’ clicks to elevate content in search.

“To me, the larger, meta takeaway is that even more of Google’s public statements about what they collect and how their search engine works have strong evidence against them,” Rand Fishkin, a veteran of the search engine optimization (SEO) industry, told The Verge via email.

The leak first spread after SEO experts Fishkin and Mike King published some of the contents of the leaked documents earlier this week along with accompanying analyses. The leaked API documents contain repositories filled with information about and definitions of data Google collects, some of which may inform how webpages are ranked in search. At first, Google dodged questions about the authenticity of the leaked documents before confirming their veracity on Wednesday.

“We would caution against making inaccurate assumptions about Search based on out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete information,” Google spokesperson Davis Thompson told The Verge in an email on Wednesday. “We’ve shared extensive information about how Search works and the types of factors that our systems weigh, while also working to protect the integrity of our results from manipulation.”

There’s no indication in the documents about how different attributes are weighted, for one. It’s also possible that some of the attributes named in the documents — like an identifier for “small personal sites” or a demotion for product reviews, for example — might have been deployed at some point but have since been phased out. They also may have never been used for ranking sites at all.

“We don’t necessarily know how [the factors named] are being used, aside from the different descriptions of them. But even though they’re somewhat sparse, there’s a lot of information for us,” King says. “What are the aspects that we should be thinking about more specifically when we’re creating websites or optimizing websites?”

The suggestion that the world’s largest search platform doesn’t base search result rankings on how users engage with the content feels absurd on its face. But the repeated denials, carefully worded company responses, and industry publications that unquestioningly carry these claims have made it a contentious topic of debate among SEO marketers.

Another major point highlighted by Fishkin and King relates to how Google may use Chrome data in its search rankings. Google Search representatives have said that they don’t use anything from Chrome for ranking, but the leaked documents suggest that may not be true. One section, for example, lists “chrome_trans_clicks” as informing which links from a domain appear below the main webpage in search results. Fishkin interprets it as meaning Google “uses the number of clicks on pages in Chrome browsers and uses that to determine the most popular/important URLs on a site, which go into the calculation of which to include in the sitelinks feature.”

There are over 14,000 attributes mentioned in the documents, and researchers will be digging for weeks looking for hints contained within the pages. There’s mention of “Twiddlers,” or ranking tweaks deployed outside of major system updates, that boost or demote content according to certain criteria. Elements of webpages, like who the author is, are mentioned, as are measurements of the “authority” of websites. Fishkin points out that there’s plenty that’s not represented much in the documents, too, like information about AI-generated search results .

So what does this all mean for everyone other than the SEO industry? For one, expect that anyone who operates a website will be reading about this leak and trying to make sense of it. A lot of SEO is throwing things against the wall to see what sticks, and publishers, e-commerce companies, and businesses will likely design various experiments to try to test some of what’s suggested in the documents. I imagine that, as this happens, websites might start to look, feel, or read a little differently — all as these industries try to make sense of this wave of new but still vague information.

“Journalists and publishers of information about SEO and Google Search need to stop uncritically repeating Google’s public statements, and take a much harsher, more adversarial view of the search giant’s representatives,” Fishkin says. “When publications repeat Google’s claims as though they are fact, they’re helping Google spin a story that’s only useful to the company and not to practitioners, users, or the public.”

Search for Free and Find Your Next Essay or Research Paper

Search for free, our powerful essay, research paper, and term paper database search engine. The Paper Store has access to over 120,000 professionally written essays, term papers, books reports, thesis, and admissions essays.

Search our paper database using your research paper topic keyword; short group of words to describe your topic; or choose one of 400 academic research topics to narrow down your search. We are one of the oldest essay websites on the Internet, supporting students with sample essays and term papers since 1994.

Free Advanced Essay Search Engine

Need help choosing the thesis or research topic for your next assignment? Use our free search engine to help research a modern thesis statement for your next assignment. We write dozens of papers a month - and with over 120,000 sample papers to choose from, we are a great on-line resource to kick-start your paper using one of our sample papers. Buy an example research paper, term paper, or essay from the Paper Store.

Still can't find the example essay, research paper or term paper to fit your needs?

Contact our staff of American researchers and academic writers and have a custom sample essay or term paper written by our team. Visit our Custom Research team: CLICK HERE

We Sell Two Kinds of Essays, Research Papers, Term Papers and Thesis

Existing, on-file papers.

Our On-File Essay and Research Papers are essay, book reports, research papers and term papers that we have written for previous customers on thousands of topics ($ 9.95 /page). Our free database has over 120,000 essays to choose from that are available 24/7/365. You paper is delivered via email. We can also send the research paper through fax or express mail.

To search our free essay database for an existing research paper, just enter a word or a short group of words to describe your topic in the search box above or choose from our topic list.

Custom Research and Writing Service

Since 1994, our U.S. based and educated writers have been available 24/7/365 to write a new custom term paper , custom written research paper or custom essay on any topic ($ 19.95 /page). With over 120,000 custom papers written, our experienced team of research professionals are here to custom write your example essay.

Each of our writers possess close to 20 years of academic experience in writing exemplary term papers, essays, book reports, research papers, dissertations and theses , and any other custom writing or professional research need. Trust the professionals at the Paper Store.