If you're looking for information, government databases are an excellent place to start: the information has already been evaluated, there's usually a lot of it, and the topics you can find this information under are seemingly limitless.
However, these databases can be a bit tricky to find since they are part of the Deep Web, the vast repository of information that search engines and directories either can't access easily (like intranets or internal wikis) without a little bit of extra search kung-fu. First, let's look at a simple search query you can use to find most any subject in a government database (in Google):
site:.gov "lemons"
This brings up all information on lemons that resides on the ".gov" domain. Since government databases (in the U.S, mind you) are on the .gov domain, you can hit some good results.
There's also a few stellar "database doorways", or portals, you can use to access all sorts of fun government information. For instance:
- Data.gov: Meant to eventually increase public access to the wonderful information on government databases.
- Ben's Guide to US Government: A kid-friendly (shoot, ANY age friendly) introduction to the nuts and bolts of government.
- GPO Access Database: Official information from all three branches of the Federal government.
Oh, and don't forget USA.gov or the Library of Congress. Both of these sites offer access to literally thousands of government databases on nearly any topic you can think of.
How about looking for a specific file type? You can do that. Using our "lemon" example, let's try looking for a PDF file, in the .gov domain, with the word "lemon" in the page title:
allintitle: lemon filetype:pdf site:.gov
Allintitle is a search operator specific to Google that brings back only search words you specify in the title of the Web page itself.
What if you want to search within the URL itself? You can do that with this:
allinurl: lemon site:.gov
The allinurl operator restricts your searches to within the URL itself.
How about Bing? They do it a little differently. Every search engine brings back different results, so it's worth trying at least two different engines to get a full range of good results. Try this:
(site:.gov OR site:.gov) lemon
Same as our first search above, but with decidedly different results. How about.....
records site:.gov language:es
This returned results for "records" in the .gov domain, in Spanish only.
More about government sites
The Top Twenty Essential US Government Websites: There are literally hundreds of thousands of US government and government-related Web sites online today, however, I found that these sites consistently offer the best user experience, helping you to find what you need quickly, easily, and efficiently.