How Do I
Searching and Search Engines
What is a Search EngineSearching Tips
Top Five Search Engines
Types of Search Engines
Other Ways
Miscellaneous Information and Help
What is a Search Engine?
A program that searches documents
for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords
were found. Although search engine is really a general class of programs,
the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Alta Vista
and
Excite that enable users to search for documents on the World
Wide Web and USENET newsgroups. Typically, a search engine works by sending
out a spider to fetch as many documents as possible. Another program, called
an indexer, then reads these documents and creates an index based on the
words contained in each document. Each search engine uses a proprietary
algorithm to create its indices such that, ideally, only meaningful results
are returned for each query.
There are scores of search engines available to locate information on the World Wide Web. Each search engine operates differently and offers different services and features. Below are a few of the most widely used search engines. Take the time to explore the search engines and find which one works best for you!
Searching Tips
- Use specific words (example: use poodle, not dog).
- Use quotation marks around phrases, to ensure that results appear together in a site (example: "chocolate chip cookies").
- Use the + and – sign to improve your results.( examples: recipes for cookies that have raisins use the search +cookies +raisins OR for information on dogs but not hotdogs use dogs –hotdogs)
- Use the help screens and tutorials that are provided by the search engines.
- Each search engine works differently, be aware of special features and tools that it offers.
- Check your spelling.
- Do NOT use all capital letters.
- Ask a librarian for help.
Top Five Search Engines
www.altavista.com
Alta Vista also
has several special features such as very detailed maps and the Photo Finder,
which will search for images of people, places and things. Alta Vista is
excellent for keyword searching, complex searching, and a large directory
of sites to look through.
Tips for Alta Vista:
- The Advanced search option allows you to use Boolean Searching and limit by date.
- Alta Vista will translate pages from the hit list into other languages.
www.metacrawler.com
Metacrawler is
a Meta search engine and will run your search on several engines simultaneously.
It also has a feature to limit searches to phrases and will eliminate duplicate
hits.
Tips for Metacrawler:
- Use the standardize search query syntax (+, -, and "") for best results.
- Be specific.
www.yahoo.com
Yahoo is the
best example of a subject directory, where the sites are evaluated by people
and then assigned categories and subjects. It is a good choice if you want
an overview of a topic or want to browse.
Tips for Yahoo:
- Because Yahoo is subject based, choose keywords based on the subject that you are interested in.
- Yahoo’s Advanced Search makes it easy to limit by date and search method.
www.hotbot.com
HotBot is another
favorite among researchers due to its large index of the web and many powerful
searching features. HotBot allows the user to customize your search by
language, all the words, or people. Advanced search option allows you to
limit by domain type, personal pages, and special media types (Java, Shockwave,
etc.).
Tips for Hotbot:
- By default, HotBot displays documents containing all the words in your search query (The equivalent of a Boolean AND search).
www.excite.com
Excite 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, when appropriate. It also offers one of the best news search services available: Excite News Tracker.
Types of Search Engines
Subject Directories:
Subject
directories are a good place to start if you need an overview of a topic
or just want to browse in the WWW. Subject directores are most like the
card catalogs found in libraries. Users may get fewer hits, but will find
that they are usually more relevant sites.
Yahoo
Yahooligans
Miningco
Content Search Engines:
The
software search engines constantly visit web sites on the Internet in order
to create catalogs of web pages. Because they run automatically and index
so many web pages, search engines may often find information not listed
in directories.
HotBot
Alta Vista
Excite
Lycos
Infoseek
Alta Vista's Photo Finder
Google
Meta Search Engines:
Using
a meta search engine will provide the most results for a search. A meta
search engines will run your search on multiple search engines at the same
time.
Metacrawler
ProFusion
Inference Find
WebCrawler Searching
Dogpile
Other Ways and Spots to Search on the WWW
For Phrase and Quotation Searching try:
For Reference Information try:
- My Virtual Reference Desk
- The Library Spot
- Ask Jeeves
- Needle in a CyberStack
- InternetEncyclopedia
- Internet Movie Database
- International Lyrics Server
- DejaNews Research Service - Search newsgroups by keyword subject
Miscellaneous Information and Help
- Search Engine Watch This site provides status reports, a guide and overview of all major search engines and directories.
- PC Webopedia An online encyclopedia and search engine dedicated to computer technology.
- Search Engine Notes The User's guide to searching the web. This site has a comparison chart and reviews of many of the major search engines, searching tips, and other new resources.
- Marylaine Block, Writer, Internet Trainer, "Librarian without Walls" An eclectic site that provides a number of internet guides, links to exceptional sites and a weekly e-zine, Ex Libris, for librarians.
