• Home

• Module One:

  • Beginner's Research Guide

    • Searching Steps

    • Locating Books

    • Locating Article Citations

    • Finding Journals

    • Database Tutorials

• Module Two

  • Research Utilization and Evidence-Based Practice

    • publication types

    • search strategies

    • limit your search

    • specialized databases

    • evidence-based journals

    • clinical guidelines

    • web sites

• Module Three

  • Searching the Web

    • sites and meta sites

    • free vs. fee-based sites

    • search engines

    • web directories

    • the invisible web

    • consumer health info

    • evaluating the web

• Getting Help

Searching the Web | invisible web

Contents of specialized databases, whether free or fee-based, are not searchable using search tools such as directories or search engines. The valuable information within these databases has been called the invisible web. Database contents are searchable only by entering the individual database. To read more about this, go to:
The invisible web: database contents rarely found in search engines

Plumbing the Depths: Using the Invisible Web

Even a free database like the National Library of Medicine's PubMed version of MEDLINE must be searched by itself. Its contents are not accessible via a search engine or metasearch tool.

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