Google or Bing can’t search for everything. In order to explore the invisible web, you need to use these special deep search engines.
Not everything on the web will appear on Google or Bing’s search results list; There are a lot of places that their web crawlers can’t access.
To explore the invisible web, you need to use a professional search engine. There are 12 top services below for you to do an internet deep search.
What Is the Invisible Web?
Before we get started, let’s determine what the term “invisible web” means. Simply put, it’s an all-encompassing term for online content that doesn’t appear in search results or web directories.
There are no official data yet, but most experts agree that invisible web are several times larger than visible networks. Given that Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook have stored more than 1200 petabytes of content between them, these numbers quickly become incredible.
Content on the invisible web can be broadly divided into the deep web and the dark web.
The Deep Web
The deep web is made up of content that typically requires some form of authentication to access. For example, library databases, email inboxes, personal records (financial, academic, health, and legal), cloud storage drives, corporate intranets, and more.
If you have the correct details, you can access these through a normal web browser.
The Dark Web
The dark web is a subsection of the deep web. You’ll need to use a specialized dark web browser like Tor to see this. It is more anonymous than the regular web and is therefore often the site of illegal activities such as drug and arms sales.
The Best Invisible Web Search Engines
1. Pipl
Pipl has established itself as the world’s largest population search engine. Unlike Google, Pipl can interact with searchable databases, membership directories, court records, and other in-depth internet searches to give you a detailed snapshot of a person.
2. WorldCat
How do you know what books are in libraries in different locations in your area? Going through each library’s website individually is time-consuming and can go wrong.
Instead, you can view WorldCat. This in-depth internet search engine has 2 billion indexes from libraries around the world, including many links that are usually only available through database searches.
3. The Wayback Machine
Ordinary search engines only provide the results of the latest version of a website.
Wayback Machine is different. It has more than 361 billion copies of web pages on its servers, allowing you to search for content that no longer exists on the visible web.
4. Ahmia
Ahmia is a dark web search engine. But there is a twist— it is one of the few dark web search engines available on the regular web.
Of course, unless the tor browser is installed on your computer, no links and results can be opened. However, it’s still a great way to get a taste of the benefits of the dark web without exposing yourself to the inherent risks of using the dark web.
5. The WWW Virtual Library
The WWW Virtual Library is the oldest catalog on the web. It was started by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, back in 1991.
Volunteers create a high-quality index of deep web content across dozens of categories by hand compiling a list of links.
6. Voice of the Shuttle
For anyone with an interest in humanities, Voice of the Shuttle is an essential resource. The site went live in 1994 and today boasts one of the most impressive collections of curated deep web content.
There are over 70 pages of links to commentaries covering everything from architecture to philosophy.
7. DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is known as a private search engine for the visible web, but did you know that the company also offers an onion website that lets you explore the dark web?
Even the average search engine offers more deep web content than Google. It brings together the results of more than 500 independent search tools to find their results. If you pair the regular DuckDuckGo engine with the .onion version, you can do an entire web search.
The onion site can be found at http://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/.
8. Elephind
Elephind aims to provide a single portal for all the world’s historical newspapers. It’s a magical resource for researchers— especially family historians, genealogists, and students.
Many of the newspapers on the site are on the deep web, and they don’t show up on Google. At the time of writing, it had 3.6 million newspapers to choose from.
9. USA.gov
The amount of content USA.gov is impressive. It is a portal that provides all the public materials you need about every federal agency and state, local, or tribal government.
You’ll also find information about government jobs, loans, grants, taxes, and more. Most of the information on this website does not appear on Google.
10. notEvil Dark Web
If you’re looking for a dark web search engine, check out notEvil Dark Web. The site has an .onion domain name, so it can’t be accessed through a standard web browser. To load it, open a dark web browser like Tor and paste hss3uro2hsxfogfq.onion into the address bar.
It has a database of more than 32 million dark websites, which means that if it exists, this search engine might find it.
11. Directory of Open Access Journals
The Directory of Open Access Journals is a deep internet search engine that provides access to academic papers. The papers are available to anyone without charge.
The current database has nearly 10,000 journals and 2.5 million articles covering all disciplines. Google Scholar has access to some of the information, but we think DOAJ is a better research tool.
12. Project Gutenberg
If you search for obscure copyright-free ebooks on Google, you’ll have to click through several pages to find a result that provides a download link.
Project Gutenberg offers over 58,000 free ebooks for you to check out and download.
Learn more about iInvisible Web
The 12 search engines in the list above should provide a solid foundation on which to start your search for content.
Sadly, Deeppeep, one of the most famous deep search engines of the past, no longer exists, but all the sites in the article can help recreate lost functionality.
