What is Ithaki?
Ithaki for Kids is a kid-friendly, safe search,
meta search engine. From the site: "Ithaki 4 KiDs helps you to find the best sites
just for kids via searching in real time several search engines for kids like DmozKids,
Yahooligans,
FactMonster, ArtKIDSRule, AolKIDS, AwesomeLibrary & KidsClick!." Ithaki
finds results for whatever you type in (family-friendly queries only please), then
removes the duplicates across all the search engines and web directories, puts them in order, and
displays them in one search results page. A nice meta search engine just for the kids.
How does Ithaki work?
Basically, Ithaki works like any other meta search engine - which means that the user
can search listings from multiple search engines all in one place. There seems to be a pretty
good Internet filter, since any "questionable" queries were met with a polite "Your search for
(bleep) could not produce any results." And believe me, I really tried to get past that
filter.
Search the Web with Ithaki for Kids
Meta searching with Ithaki for kids is very simple. All you need to do is type in a query on the
Ithaki home page and away you go. One thing I noticed -
Ithaki seems to run very slow, but this is a common problem in meta search engines, as they are
retrieving your search results across multiple databases.
Ithaki Advanced Search Options
You can check out the
Ithaki Advanced Search
page, where you'll see all the various categories that Ithaki covers, such as News,
Computers and Software, Europe, and more.
Safe Search with Ithaki
Ithaki bills itself as a kid-safe zone, but just like with anything else on the Web, parents
should use their own judgement and make their own boundaries. Kids are smart - and they
can figure out ways to get past the strongest Internet filters. As always, before
letting your kids loose on the Web, consider making some
Family
Web Guidelines in order to keep everything safe.
Why Should My Kids Use Ithaki?
I found that results were truly family-friendly, and it was nice to see results returned from a multitude of
kids' sites. My only beef with Ithaki is that it is exceedingly slow, but that's to be expected somewhat
with meta search engines. I would say that this is a good kids meta search engine for the 7-12 crowd.
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