Search sites that will help you find what you've been looking for - graphs, pictures, statistics, insights and, more.

1. Offbeat Searching
For Hard to Find,
Wacky and Wonderful Stuff
Brenda Young
October 1, 2016
Presented at BarCamp Tampa Bay

2. Where to look –
when you can’t find what you’re looking for
Here is a sampling, in no particular order, of a few websites I’ve collected over the
years to help me find that one statistic, chart, quote, graphic, picture or insight that
doesn’t show up in the main search engines.
Most of these sites have an “about” page that explains what they do and how they
select information. This can provide a lot of useful information about the context of
for your search. For some of these sites, it’s also good to do a search on a standard
term at one of the major sites and then search the same term on the new site so
you can get a feel for how the new site displays results.
I’ve added a few just-for-fun sites to play with. All of them are worth bookmarking.
Have fun searching!

3. Ixquick
A metasearch engine with a different algorithm for search. It also has the advantage of
putting users’ privacy at the forefront. None of your details are stored and no cookies are
used.
https://www.ixquick.com/

4. Giphy
• The place to search when you want a ready-made gif
https://giphy.com/

5. Find Sounds
This search engine will find you sounds in a variety of formats. Note
that this is for sounds only and not for music.
http://www.findsounds.com/

6. Zanran
Looking for a graph, table or report? Try Zanran.
http://www.zanran.com/q/

7. Nostalgic Candy
Looking for an old-fashioned candy?
http://www.nostalgiccandy.com/

8. Oamos
Looking for inspiration? Try Oamos for visual search results.
http://www.oamos.com/

9. Infomine
Tap into the deep web. Infomine is a search engine created by a consortium of
universities.
http://infomine.ucr.edu/

10. Deep Web Tech
Search the invisible web for topics on science, medicine, and business
http://www.deepwebtech.com/

11. Tune Find
Find music from TV and movies
http://www.tunefind.com/

12. Blinkx
This is a video search engine that collects results from hundreds of
video/television providers.
http://www.blinkx.com/

13. What does the Internet think
Real-time search. The name explains it all
http://www.whatdoestheinternetthink.net/

14. Terra Pattern
A visual search engine for satellite imagery
http://www.terrapattern.com/

15. First Gov
A portal to search government information and services
https://www.usa.gov/

16. Unsplash
Free high-resolution photos
https://unsplash.com/

17. Dot Hop
Visual search engine with scrolling page search results
http://dothop.com/home

18. Nerd Graph
Looking for a good infographic?
http://www.nerdgraph.com/

19. Eyeplorer
Type in a word or words to research and eyePlorer puts the results into
a color wheel of information.
http://eyeplorer.com/show/

20. Ask a Ninja
When you’d like a fun way to get an answer
https://www.youtube.com/askaninja

21. Tin Eye
Search images by color and reverse image searchs
http://labs.tineye.com/multicolr/

22. Open Refine
A free, open source power tool for working with messy data and
improving it
https://github.com/OpenRefine

23. Worldometers
Real time world information
http://www.worldometers.info/

24. Ask a Librarian
A good place to start your search
http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/

25. Wolfram Alpha
Gets answers—not by searching the web, but by doing computations based on a
collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/

26. The Noun Project
Search for a variety of icons
https://thenounproject.com/

27. Thank you!
Brenda Young
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendayoung