Searching the invisible web

The idea of the invisible or deep web has often been the focus of web searching tutorials and information literacy courses. It's valuable to use a site such as INFOMINE to search for 'hidden' resources that don't usually appear in the top of your popular search engine queries. This Friday's guide offers some other resources for web searching and the deep web. With the growing numbers of institutional repositories, open access journals, and the like, it may be worthwhile to review some of these search strategies. A few tweaks allow you to use major search engines more effectively. The following resources provide more depth on these strategies and places to find what you're looking for.

Those Dark Hiding Places : The Invisible Web Revealed
The "invisible web" are those parts of the internet which, for various reasons, are inaccessible to the large search engines, or ranked so low in relevancy to the web search as to be overlooked. "Invisible" sites are often deeper layers of databases and directories, as well as dynamically-generated sites. This site points users in the direction of smaller directories with annotated information on websites in broad topic areas; databases; and search engines.

Intute : Virtual Training Suite
With segments geared toward internet users working in many different fields, these tutorials point users toward web resources specific to their fields, give information on how to judge the quality of resources found on the internet, and provide tips on web searching. The complete list of Intute tutorials is listed here by discipline.

Internet Detective : Wise up to the Web
Internet research skills tutorial for students on selecting, evaluating, and using Internet information sources for college and university work. From Intute.

Web Searching : Internet Public Library
The guide directs you to web search engines suitable for use by new searchers, experienced searchers, those looking for quality rather than quantity of resources, and those searching for specialized or arcane information. There are links to pages with search tips and to pages on evaluation of web sites.

Google Guide
Tips on effective searching with Google. Includes guides to features, search operators, understanding results, and the various tools available.

Search Engine Watch
"Search Engine Watch provides tips and information about searching the web, analysis of the search engine industry and help to site owners trying to improve their ability to be found in search engines."