Internet 101/102: Untangling the Web

welcome | bibliography | glossary

I. How does it work?

II. What's really out there?

III. How can I search?

IV. Why should I evaluate?

V. How do I cite sources?

a. web directories | b. search engines | c. specialty tools | d. library databases

How can I search? --search engines

How they work
titles, meta-tags (descriptions input by authors of pages), other parts of web sites/pages are keyword indexed into a database by a computer program
Advantages
search "all" the web
faster search for specific information
Disadvantages
large numbers of hits
irrelevant hits
can include dead links
Features
advanced search techniques (see Search Engines Quick Guide)
relevancy ranking for results
may maintain or partner with a web directory for browsing by subject

AltaVista
Free Website: http://www.altavista.com
Click on Help in the Basic Search (default) or in the Advanced Search for tips on searching. Search options for images, audio and video are available, as well as a translation tool for translating text or whole web sites into different languages.

Fast Search
Free Website: http://alltheweb.com
It's fast! Click on Help in the Simple Search (default) or in the Advanced Search for tips.

Google
Free Website: http://www.google.com
Currently the "biggest" and most highly rated search engine. Google ranks results by relevancy based on how many times a particular web site or page has been linked to by other highly relevant pages. Search results include a "Cached" feature which links to a cached (or saved) copy of the web page taken at the time it was collected and then highlights within that copy where it found your keywords -- very useful when pages "disappear!" Google also has a powerful search feature for images on the web.

HotBot
Free Website: http://hotbot.com
Click on Help to learn search techniques; offers up-front limiting features such as date and language, but click on Advanced Search for other choices.

Meta-Search Engines

These tools search for keywords by using multiple search engines and/or web directories at one time. Some will toss out "duplicate" hits and compile the hits all together; others will initially list the top 10 hits retrieved by each individual search engine.

AskJeeves
Free Website: http://www.askjeeves.com
Go ahead, ask Jeeves a question! Pick from a selection of followup questions provided by Jeeves, or view a listing of hits that other search engines found.

Dogpile
Free Website: http://dogpile.com
All the best search engines piled into one.

ixquick
Free Website: http://ixquick.com
Searches multiple search engines and web directories for web sites/pages, news, MP3 or pictures. Click on "search help" to see a list of "Power Search Techniques."

MetaCrawler
Free Website: http://www.metacrawler.com
Compiles hits from other search engines and then ranks the hits by relevance. Take advantage of their "Power Search" to limit to specific search engines and domain names. A fun little feature called metaspy allows you to view "what the rest of the world is searching for." (I'll give you just one guess.)