Week 5, nearly half way.

Week Five
We are nearly half way.

This week is all about Search Engines. When it comes to searching on the internet it is divided into two parts;

Search Engines .................................... Directories

Search engines:

Google, www.google.com

Yahoo, www.yahoo.com

Alta Vista, www.altravista.com

Alltheweb, alltheweb.com

Dogpile, www.dogpile.com

Ask Jeeves, www.askjeeves.com

Clusty, clusty.com

Teona, www.teona.com

Online directories are more efficient as every submission has to be edited by a human, which will ensure quality. This process will eliminate most misleading articles.

Directories:

DMOZ, dmoz.org

Google Directory, directory.google.com

Yahoo Directory, dir.yahoo.com

Look Smart, www.looksmart.com

About, www.about.com

There are many search engines available on the www, if you do not know how to search correctly using search engines then this can be difficult;
- you could get to many results
- you could bring back results that you didn’t want
- you could get heaps of advertisements

In this week’s tutorial…

Strategies to help structure a good search.

1. If you need to know a lot about a topic, then you should use a directory not a search engine.

2. If you are after exact phrases or statements then put them in quotation marks it will search all the words together, e.g. “to be or not to be”.

3. Use more than one search engine or directory.

4. Searching tools don’t usually like numbers or codes, so try and reword the search term or use narrowed down key words.

I successfully finished the quiz; I do have some pointers for anyone who needs some help.

1. Use keywords, you do not need the whole question. Using keywords will narrow down the search and help you to find exactly what you are looking for.
2. Put the key words in quotation marks. This will narrow down the search results because you are only searching for these specific words in sequel.
3. Add extra words, for example; How old was William Wordsworth when he died? In the search box you could write

"William Wordsworth" age

I just guessed with this one. I presumed it would search for the main name and narrow the search further to include this extra information too.

Summary;
Search engines hold millions of sites and will want to show you all of them. When searching you need to narrow down this topic as much as you can, to try and eliminate unnecessary information. The internet can create unlimited information but you need to be aware of what you understand as a fact, because it may be just someone’s opinion. Anyone can upload onto the World Wide Web so be careful when searching. Advanced search options are great when you are looking for scholarly information, just type in .edu in the domain type, this will only bring back these results.

This exercise taught me to use my previous knowledge and to think outside the box when searching through databases. Using other words or information you already know about your topic will help to narrow down the search and get a more specific result. When looking for specific information you can use other words as I have for the exercise, this will narrow down the topic even more. We use search engines to make the www easier and quicker to use, but not knowing how to use a search engine correctly may inevitably make it worse.

Weekly Readings-

‘History of the internet: (Chapter 4- Search Engines)’

In 1990 an archive was developed the first search engine, and in 1991 Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) developed Thinking Machines Corp. These search-engines didn’t survive because of technology and the competition between servers.

This website also mentions how to search correctly to find information on the www. It states the same information we have already covered in other readings.

Directories chosen by humans:
WWW Virtual Library- run by volunteers to ensure that the links are relevant and up to date.
Yahoo!- a commercial directory and one of the largest, but may contain advertisements.

Search engines
- Google
- Alta Vista
- Northern Light

‘Search Engine Optimization for Companies’

Well this week is over now, read on to see whats in store for next week.