Evaluating Web Resources  

3 Good Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use Search Engines for Everything

1. Even the largest search engine only searches a relatively small part of the Web. According to one study (Lawrence and Giles, 1999), search engines only index about 16% of the Web. That leaves out a lot of potentially useful information!
2. Web sites are not reviewed for quality – you have to do that on your own! (see the Evaluating section of this tutorial)
3. The Web is dynamic. Perhaps you have experienced the frustration of bookmarking a page in your browser, only to discover later that the page has disappeared. The changeable nature of the Web can cause problems in citing Web sources and, ultimately, in verifying the quality of your work.

Want to know more about search engines? Check out these sites:

Search Engine Watch
Search Engine Showdown
SearchEngines.com