Pew Learning Center and Ellison Library

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Searching the Internet -- Part Deux

The 3 Main Ways to Search the Internet
General Hints, Tips, Advice, Cautions, etc., for Using Search Engines
Basic Tips for Using Some of the Decent Search Engines
If You Still Want to Know More About Searching the Net

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There are 3 main ways to search the Internet:

• Serendipitously! This method, the "truest" form of surfing the net, involves getting to a web page and then following links to other pages which may ultimately lead you to something you are looking for. Though exciting discoveries can sometimes be made, this method is usually not the most efficient or effective. See Below.

· Directories, or Subject Guides, are more useful, usually offering an hierarchical organization of subject headings, put together by humans! You start by selecting a broad heading, and eventually narrow it down to your area of interest. These tools approximate library classification schemes and are often put together by librarians and other academic types, so they can be helpful in weeding out some of the "undesirable" information on the web. The down side is that there is just too much, often useful, information available, and there aren't enough humans to index it all.

· Search Engines fill this gap by allowing you to type in keywords, then the "engine" automatically goes out and searches its index of internet sites for the words you enter. Search engines can be effective for finding very specific pieces of in formation, or for locating particular home pages, such as for a company, university, or organization.

General Hints, Tips, Advice, Cautions, etc., for Using Search Engines:

• No single tool searches the entire web (no matter the claims), and since their indexes are different, no two search engines will produce the same results, so try several different engines for any given search.

· Do not assume you can question a search engine like you can a librarian (i.e., don't use the "natural language" search option). For example, rather than typing "where is the copy machine in our library?", type "ellison library AND copy machine" (Of c ourse, the syntax of the search will vary depending on which search engine you use)!

· Before you perform your search, develop a list of keyword search terms, thinking of synonyms, variant spellings, etc. Similarly, try several different permutations of the same search.

· Avoid meta-indexes, the too-good-to-be-true tools that claim to take your search and execute it in several different search engines at once. These often aren't very effective for many reasons (i.e., some tools allow boolean searching while others do not; of those that do, some use word operators and some use symbols; some allow truncation and others don't; etc.).

· Most search engines have lousy HELP files. (See the section, Basic Tips for Using Some of the Decent Search Engines.)

Basic Tips for Using Some of the Decent Search Engines:

Google
Alta Vista
HotBot
Lycos
InfoSeek Guide Webcrawler

Google is one of the newer search engines and probably the most popular (for good reason)—it’s fast and good at finding relevant information.

• Performs an automatic AND boolean search between search words
• Supports the use of the OR boolean operator (type in all caps)
• Use a "+" to include common "stop" words in your searches
• Use a "-" to exclude certain words
• Use quotes around phrases
• Does not support truncation

Alta Vista is a fairly comprehensive search engine, and before Google came along, it was one of our favorites.

• Can search the web or Usenet news groups
• Use quotes around phrases
• When using the "Simple" search option, use "+" and "-" symbols immediately in front of the word to require or exclude search terms. If you do not use these, it defaults to an "OR" boolean search.
• In the "Advanced" search option, you can use the boolean operators AND, OR, NOT, or NEAR (automatically does an adjacency search of 10 words).
• Is case-sensitive, so only use upper case when that is specifically what you are searching for.
• Use an asterisk for truncation and as a "wild card" (the asterisk must follow at least 3 characters and can represent a maximum of 5 characters)
• Can specify certain fields to search (e.g., applet, image, link, title, url, etc.). Simply use the name of the field followed by a colon.

Hot Bot is good at ranking the best results at the top. It also has a powerful, eye-catching interface employing easy-to-use pull-down menus.

• Allows boolean searching, phrase searching, and people searches
• Allows searching of specific media types, such as audio, image, java, etc.
• Can limit searches to return results from large geographic regions
• Can limit searches to the domain code in the URL, such as .edu or .com
• Does not allow truncation or wild card searching.

Webcrawler is probably the simplest and most user friendly search engine. The index is smaller, however, so a search may produce only 100,000 hits rather than a million!

• Supports AND, OR, NOT, NEAR, ADJ Operators
• Can use parentheses to group words in boolean searches
• Use quotation marks for phrase searching
• Only offers single Simple Search command line
• Does not support truncation

Lycos only indexes parts of documents, so its overall retrieval suffers in comparison to some of the other search tools. Its best features are in its presentation of search results.

• Defaults to an automatic "OR" search
• Accepts forms-based Boolean searching in the "Advanced Search" mode, but only one operator may be used in any given search (i.e., all "ORs" or all "ANDs")
• In Simple Search mode, a (-) symbol may be used, but it does not exclude the page from appearing in the result list--it just pushes it further down the result list.
• Phrase, adjacency, and proximity searching in the Advanced Search mode
• Can search for sounds, pictures, recipes, etc.
• You can select the criteria for ranking your results.
• Offers simple automatic truncation (mainly for plurals). If you want to override this feature, put a period (.) after a word.

Infoseek Guide is a fast and thorough indexer but doesn't perform lengthy or complicated queries as well as some of the others.

• Uses "OR" as the default operator
• Use quotes around phrases
• Use (+) and (-) signs immediately in front of a word to require or exclude search terms.
• Can search specific fields, such as url, link, site, and title (e.g., url:david.com)
• Advanced Search mode offers forms-based Boolean searching

If You Still Want To Know More About Searching the Net:

Search Engine Watch

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