The Internet has sometimes been compared
to a gigantic library, wherein all information stored
on every computer can be accessed by every other computer
wired into the Net. One of the blessings of the Internet
is its ability to be cataloged and searched for specific
information.
New sites are posted on the Web on a minute-by-minute
basis. It is estimated that as of May, 2005, there were
more than sixty-three million Web sites utilized by
over 1.07 billion users world wide. With that many documents
now in storage on servers worldwide, there must be a
way to find out where they are and what they contain.
At this time there is no single system that catalogs
all the data. However, a properly conducted search
will give you a good idea of what's available on your
specific topic.
The Tools
Internet search tools are far from perfect. Major
search engine databases are found to contain only a
small percentage of exisiting Web pages. But it
is not size, but relevance, that determines a search
engine's value to you.
What's a Search Engine?
A search engine is a program that scans documents for
certain keywords (the words you type in a search query)
and returns a list of Web pages in which they're found.
When you type in a keyword, you get a list of links
containing that key word. Then, it's up to you to follow
each link to the listed site and browse through the
information to see if it's what you want.
All search engines work in a similar way in that they
use programs called spiders, robots, or crawlers to
scan the Web and follow links between documents. The
pages that spiders collect are placed into a master
database or index. Each engine uses its own formula
or algorithm to index information. For example, some
engines search only titles of pages, others for the
first few lines of text, and then others pull every
single word for a page.
As the Web matures and gets more sophisticated, and
pages are moved or taken out of service, not all the
links found by search engines will be valid. Eventually
inoperable links are removed, but that can take time.
Because of differing algorithms, the same search in
two different search engines can come up with different
results. A thorough search involves at least two or
more individual search engines (one that does simultaneous
multi-engine search) thrown in for good measure.
When you hit a site you like from a search engine,
look for that site's list of links or hot links.
How do Search Engines Search?
There are two major kinds of search engines.
Directory Service, typified by Yahoo,
are manually created catalogs of Websites that are reviewed
and classified by warm and sensitive human beings. When
you search Yahoo, you first select a main category and
drill down into subcategories until you find the information
you’re looking for.
Search Engine Technology is used by
most directories along with a directory service, meaning
that there are several ways to search most sites. Search
engines search according to mathematical algorithms,
which scan the search engine’s database for match
of keywords or phrases. Sites that contain keywords
in its title, or near the top of the page, are likely
to show up in a search.
Boolean - AND, OR, NOT
The most popular Web-search technique is known as Boolean
searching, and its major words are AND, OR, and NOT.
As a substitute for those three words, you can often
use the (+) or (-) minus signs in some engines to signify
the words AND/OR and NOT.
A search for an exact phrase or a proper name can simply
be wrapped in quotes so the engine knows to search for
the words in a unit.
Not all search engines accept all Boolean commands
in the same way, so it is best to check the individual
policy concerning the best way to search.
How do you know if your searches are effective?
- Is its operation easy to grasp?
- Did it get a lot of accurate results
- Were the first 10 results relevant?
If the answer to any of these answers is “no”,
refine your search with more specific keywords, and
try a different search or metasearch engine.
Popular Search Engines
To check on the latest information on searching the
Web, check Danny Sullivan’s Web Site called Search
Engine Watch (http://www.searchenginewatch.com).
Metasearch engines such as Metacrawler
(http://www.metacrawler.com) give you results from many
different search engines at one time, including other
metasearch engines.
- Alta
Vista (http://www.altavista.com) is a
good example of a search engine that has introduced
ways to help users focus on what they are looking
for. Search for something like ‘travel’, and on the
results page, you’ll be shown ‘related searches.’
These are other popular searches that contain the
word ‘travel’ - click on any of them, and you can
easily perform a more specific and related search.
It’s a useful feature, and one that has shown up on
several other search engines. AltaVista is consistently
one of the largest search engines on the Web, in terms
of pages indexed. It’s comprehensive coverage and
wide range of power searching commands makes it a
particular favorite among researchers.
- Ask
Jeeves for Kids ( http://www.ajkids.com/)
A nice search engine that allows kids to ask simple
questions and get sources off from the Web which answer
their questions.
- Dogpile
(http://www.dogpile.com), uses a metasearch interface
which supports many of the Web’s most popular search
tools. Dogpile has links to a variety of online services.
- Excite
(http://www.excite.com) is one of the most popular
search services on the web. It offers a medium sized
index and integrates non-web material such as company
information and sports scores into its results.
- FAST
Search (http://www.fastsearch.com) Fast
Search & Transfer has announced the world’s biggest
fastest search engine; 300 million web pages searched
in under one half second with highly relevant results.
Fast Search uses the FAST Web Crawler. The crawler
will fetch HTML documents, pictures, video, and audio.
- Google
(http://www.google.com) is a new search engine site
that bases its results on link popularity to rank
web sites, not on a crawler type search engine.
This can be especially helpful in finding good sites
in response to general searches. Google has gained
wide-spread praise for its high relevancy results.
- Go
/ Infoseek (http://www.infoseek.com)
Go is a portal site produced by Infoseek and Disney.
It offers portal features such as personalization
and free e-mail, plus the search capabilities of the
former Infoseek search services, which has now been
folded into Go. Searchers will find that Go consistently
provides quality results in response to many general
and broad searches. It also has an impressive human-compiled
directory of web sites.
- Hotbot
(http://www.hotbot.com) is a favorite among researchers
due to its large index of the web and many power searching
features.
- Lycos
(http://www.lycos.com) started out as a search engine,
depending on listings that came from spidering the
web. In April 1999, it shifted to a directory model
similar to Yahoo.
- Microsoft
Network (http://www.msn.com) Microsoft’s
MSN Search Service is a LookSmart-powered directory
of web sites, with secondary results that come from
AltaVista.
- Netscape
Search’s (http://www.netscape.com) results
come primarily from the Open Directory and Netscape’s
own ‘Smart Browsing’ database, which does an excellent
job of listing “official” web sites. At the Netcenter
portal site, other search engines are also featured.
- Northern
Light (http://www.northernlight.com)
is another favorite search engine among researchers.
It features one of the largest indexes on the web,
along with the ability to cluster documents by topic.
- Open
Directory (http://www.dmoz.org), is a
volunteer run directory that lets other search engines
use its “human-powered” results. While Netscape actually
owns Open Directory, it offers the data free of charge
to other search engines.
- Savvy
Search (http://www.savvysearch.com) is
a metasearch engine that searches the major searge
on servers worldwide, there must be a way to find
out where they are and what they contain. At this
time there is no single system that catalogs all the
data. However, a properly conducted search will give
you a good idea of what’s available on your specific
topic.
- Yahoo
(http://www.yahoo.com), now a multimillion-dollar
company, started out as a humble collection of the
owner’s favorite Websites. Before long, word of the
popular Website spread and Yahoo was deluged with
requests from new Web designers asking to be linked
to the site. Today, Yahoo is a major Web portal used
to search for absolutely everything. Yahoo is the
web’s most popular search service and has a well-deserved
reputation for helping people find information easily.
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