Useful Search Engines for Cosmetic Chemists
If you are reading this blog then you most likely found it by doing a Google search. There aren’t a lot of sites dedicated to cosmetic science so Chemists Corner comes up frequently.
Google is a great search engine but did you know that there are other ones that can give you better results for some specific types of questions?
Alternative search engines
Here is a list of some useful alternative search engines and how a cosmetic chemist might use them.
Factbites.com
If you are first starting to research a topic that you know little about, try Factbites instead of Google. Factbites distills results to factual information about a topic and cuts down on editorializing and other distracting info. For example, a search for nanoparticles leads you to a CDC article about the subject and a wikipedia link. The website also tells you how reliable the information might be by flagging potentially misleading sources.
Quintura.com
If you don’t know all the relevant information about a topic, Quintura can help you figure it out. You start with a simple search and it gives you a cloud of other options related to that search term. So, if you are looking for information about cosmetic emulsions, you’ll see related searches for cleansing emulsions, emulsion composition, and emulsion balancing.
Clusty.com
This is a great search engine that takes results and clusters them into related clouds. Have you ever done a search on Google and gotten lots of results you weren’t interested in? For example, if you search the term “Cosmetics” you’ll get information about cosmetics mixed in with information about cosmetic surgery. Clusty (also called Yippy) organizes the search results into handy clouds. It makes it much more useful than Google when you’re looking for information about a specific topic.
Dogpile.com
If you really want to be thorough when searching a topic, then Dogpile is the way to go. It is a search engine aggregator and will give you the results of searching multiple search engines at once. This is the closest thing to a universal search engine as there is. Dogpile is definitely worth using if you want to speed up your online searches.
ChaCha.com
If you’re looking for a quick answer to some trivia question, then you should start with ChaCha.com. Unlike Google that returns completely thorough results for all queries, ChaCha specializes in answering specific questions.
cooliris.com
As a cosmetic chemist, you’ll often need images to use for creating presentations. Google has an image search function, however Cooliris is just a much better choice. You have to try it out to understand.
Indeed.com
Are you looking for a cosmetic chemist job? Then do your search on Indeed.com. You can search jobs by title, company, or key word and even narrow results to location. It’s not a place to submit your resume but it lists actual jobs that are looking to be filled.
There are many more search engine alternatives to Google but these 7 should get you started. If you are curious about more, see this profile of 100 alternative search engines.
Do you have a favorite search engine not listed? Leave a comment below and tell us what it is and why you like it.
