Keyword
Search Engines & Subject Directories
Most search engines offer two ways to look for
information. One, through keyword
searches and, two, by subject directories.
1A. The Keyword
Search feature enables you to look for information by using words
or phrases that describe your search topic.
Google is one of the best keyword search
engines on the net today. Read about Google
technology to find out what makes Google different from other search engines.
Read about the Google founders
Larry Page
and Sergey Brin,
and the history of
Google.
1B. The Subject Directory part of the search engine is primarily
the web organized by topic into subject categories or directories. To search
you click on the appropriate category(ies). One of the oldest subject tree/directory
site is Yahoo. Click
here to read the history of Yahoo.
Chief Yahoos: David
Filo and Jerry Yang
What's Yahoo!? The name Yahoo stands for:
Other directories include: Google Directories
Other directories include:
2. Web Portals
or Portal Websites
What are Portal Web sites?
Web portals are primary websites where Internet users
-- search for data,
-- receive news and
-- access their Web-based electronic mail.
Portal Web sites offer a broad array of resources and services, such as free
Web space,
forums, news headlines, search engines, and on-line shopping malls.
The first Web portals were online services, such as America Online, news Web
sites like Boston.com
that provided access to the Web, but by now most of the traditional search
engines have
transformed themselves into Web portals to attract and keep a larger audience
and analysts expect them to "evolve" into central databases for individualsí
data.
The nine major portal Web sites include:
America Online Inc., Dulles, Va.;
AltaVista, Maynard, Mass.;
Excite, San Mateo, Calif.;
Google, Mountain View, Calif.
Infoseek, Sunnyvale, Calif.;
Lycos, Waltham, Mass.;
Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.;
Netscape, Mountain View, Calif.;
Snap, San Francisco; and
Yahoo, Santa Clara, Calif.
In addition to partnering with each other, these sites work with content providers
such as news organizations and travel agencies. On average, portal vendors
work with an average of 15 companies today; by 2002, the sites expect partnerships
with thousands of companies. According to analysts, the nine major portal
Web sites now receive 15 percent of the traffic but 59 percent of online advertising
dollars.
Meta-search Engines
3. Use a Meta-search Engine to send your search request to
multiple search engines and get a complete list of matching sites. Some of
the best are:
You can find links to several other meta-search engines:
You can also add All-in-One
search capability to your system or Web pages. Go local with:
Specialized Search
Engines
4. As the Web gets bigger and more confusing, there's a growing need
for specialized search tools. Here are a few to help pinpoint the information
you want:
- Google Groups: Google has fully integrated
the past 20 years of Usenet archives into Google Groups, which now offers
access to more than 700 million messages dating back to 1981. This is by
far the most complete collection of Usenet articles ever assembled and a
fascinating first-hand historical account.
- iLOR: The new iLOR Web site improves
searches conducted using Google. iLOR provides users with tools to make
navigating search results much easier. After entering a keyword, iLOR users
can position the cursor over the link for each result.
- eBLAST--Encyclopedia
Britannica Internet Guide: A guide to the Web's top sites, chosen by
Britannica's editors
- Femina: Sites for by and about
women
- Ask Jeeves: Finds answers to
natural-language questions such as ''Who won Super Bowl XXV?''
- Webopedia and Whatis.com:
Online dictionary and search
engine for computer and Internet technology. ATN's
Index of Online Services
- Direct Hit: Lists the most popular
sites highest in its search results
- GoTo.com: Lets Web sites steer
traffic by buying high ranks in search listings. Formula doesn't work well.
- Northern Light: Allows for
very sophisticated searches without knowing complex search commands.
- Lycos Multimedia Search: Search
for multimedia on the Internet
Peer to Peer (p2p) Search Engines:
Peer-to-peer (p2p) search engines are based on a network in which
each computer has equivalent capabilities and responsibilities.
The peer-to-peer network differs from client/server architectures, in which
some computers are dedicated to serving the others. Peer-to-peer networks
are generally simpler, but they usually do not offer the same performance
under heavy loads.
Here are some popular p2p applications:
** Napster: Locate and download your
favorite music in MP3 format. See Napster logo
** Gnutella: Software tool to bypass
Internet service providers and allow computer users to search and communicate
directly among themselves. See Gnutella
logo.
** KaZaA: peer-to-peer (p2p) application
for finding, downloading, playing and sharing files with millions of other
users.
** iMesh: file sharing software with
lots of features and services.
Other Specialized Search Engines
4B. Today there are special search engines for finding:
Finding People and
Companies on the Net
AnyWho Directory Service offers reverse
telephone look-up, allows you to search by street address, and provides maps
that show you where a person lives or where a business is located.
5. Need to find the email address, URL or Internet phone number of
a particular person? Try Netscape's Net Search White
and Yellow Pages.
Or, you could link to Finding
People on the Net
Find friends, colleagues, and old roommates for free at Switchboard
or WhoWhere?
Finding people Gopher
sites
Finding people Four 11 directory services
Finding people A
More Comprehensive List
5B. Need to find the address and phone number of a company you are
researching? Try the Yahoo Yellow
Pages. If the company is listed, you can use the MapIt!
button to see where in the city or town the company is located. Once you've
done that, you can click on the DriveIt!
link to get point-to-point driving directions.
Other good sources for information on businesses include:
6. Still haven't found what you're looking for? (watch this space for
an announcement by Bono's lawyer ...) Then try a specialized directory
that covers all the sites relating to your particular topic.
You can find a directory of specialized directories at include: Google
Directories, Yahoo
Required Reading
>> Searching
for Information on the Web
Describes various types of search tools, explains how they differ, and suggests
strategies you can use to improve your searching skills.
>> Peer-To-Peer
(p2p) Searching
>> Netscape
General Tips for searching the Web. Also read Google
Search Tips
Tom's Really Sensible
Advice on Search Engine Indexes
7. Use a Search Engine Index to create a database of sites.
To search you enter a request in a search form and the engine returns a list
of sites that match your request. For example, in AltaVista you could do a
simple search on "mountain biking" (without quote marks), and AltaVista would
find about 40,000 matching sites. That's obviously too many sites for you
to look through one by one.
So, you need to refine your search term. Put quote marks around "mountain
biking," and AltaVista interprets it as a single phrase rather than as two
separate words. This cuts the number of hits down to about 10,000. Most search
engines interpret quotes as "search only for sites will all words exactly
as typed."
You can refine your search term further by using AltaVista's advanced search
button and connecting search terms with "and," "or," "not" or "near." For
example, if you type "mountain biking" AND "north carolina," you'll get about
500 hits. Add "north carolina" in the box marked "Results Ranking Criteria,"
and sites with "north carolina" in the first few words or with multiple occurrences
of "north carolina" will be at the top of your results list.
You can also exclude irrelevant hits on most search engines by adding a minus
sign followed by the key words you don't want to see. On one search engine,
for example, "JAVA" yields 20,000 sites; "JAVA-coffee" reduces the list to
26 sites that deal only with the JAVA programming language.
A summary of search engine tips:
- Be specific. Don't type "sports car"; type at least three words
in your search, such as "1987 Porsche 928."
- Use and to link two terms and focus your search. Use not
to narrow your search by excluding pages containing the second term.
- Use quotation marks.
- Use exclusions to screen out information you don't want.
- Don't bother with the natural language queries that some sites give as
examples. Searching on "fat and Shakespeare character" returns better results
than "Who's the fat guy in Shakespeare?"
- Read the online help manual for the search engine you use most often.
The biggest index? AltaVista.
Deb's Power Search Tips
8. Refine your search terms by:
- Consulting a thesaurus to find synonyms for your search terms:
- Searching under several different keyword phrases:
- Once you identify the type of query results you want, it's easy to
find similar results and develop or refine your search.
- Use hypertext to help you locate helpful keyword associations.
- Using phrases rather than single words.
- Looking for graphics, such as:
9. Try to conduct your search at non-peak times on the Internet. For
example, the search engines will work much more quickly at 7 a.m. than at
3 p.m. in most time zones.
10. Before beginning your search, check a stylebook to find out what
information you will need to cite the web site in a bibliography or footnote.
The latest edition of both the MLA and the APA stylebooks include sections
on citing electronic references (see Concordia University's Citation
Style Guides).
11. Read through the annotation that the search engine returns. You
can eliminate many sites without ever taking the time to follow the link to
the site.
12. Check out the following tips on searching:
Eric Stands in Front of Me, Speaking
Words of Wisdom ...
13. Think about what you are looking for. Where would that information
most likely be? Individual facts are not in search engines. Example: When
looking for a UNC site, you should first search for UNC. Sometimes you need
to be a little general when beginning a search.
14. Be familiar with the differences between the search engines. Yahoo's
listings are different than Lycos's. Think about what you're looking for when
deciding which engine to use.
15. Don't get overwhelmed by the number of sites you are given. Search
engines usually return the best sites first. The information you are looking
for is not likely to be in the 2,000th site returned. Also, be aware that
a lot of information is repeated over and over on the Web. Ten thousand sites
about something DOES NOT mean there is a wealth of unique information on the
subject.
16. Explore. Before you use these search engines to do a project that
"counts" (i.e. JOMC 50 work), try to learn about searching the web by looking
around for sites about your interests and hobbies. By playing around, you
will learn how to get serious work done.
17. Don't be intimidated by the Web. Just because it grows exponentially,
it isn't necessarily a scary thing. The Web is really just as simple as your
hometown library.
