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AltaVista can come in handy in a pinch, if you want to do some unusual
boolean query with () and their NEAR operator.
My wife swears by Copernic, which is a downloadable app (a free version is
available) that runs a metasearch on a ton of different engines. For sheer
scope, nothing beats it, and it allows you to do all kinds of targetted
searches in specific areas (books, movies, e-mail addresses...). Since it's
an app that you run on your own computer, it has a lot of nice features like
saving search results as well as a nice interface for summarizing the
results.
But basically, if you can't find it with Google, then you're wasting your
time. If it's out there and Google doesn't find it, chances are you'll have
to search forever to find it elsewhere. If Google does return a relevant
hit, chances are it's the most relevant page on the 'net, thus reducing your
search time dramatically. They recently tied in to the Open Directory
Project, allowing you to use Google to search just the sites within any part
of the Directory, which should allow even more fine tuned results.
