Net Search Engines The Which, Why and How
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Transcript Net Search Engines The Which, Why and How
Net Search Engines
The Which, Why and How
Tim Landeck
[email protected]
Handouts/PowerPoint available at:
www.alisal.org/tech/conferences
Presentation Focus
• WHICH: Differences Between the
Engines
• WHY: 2 Ways to Search
– Search Engines Vs. Directories
• HOW: Refining Your Search
Queries
Which Search Engine
Do You Use?
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Yahoo
Excite
Alta Vista
MSN
AOL
HotBot
Ask Jeeves
Google
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GoTo
Magellan
Lycos
Web Crawler
BigFoot
MetaCrawler
DogPile
Direct Hit
The Problem
• Too many hits for my query
• Can’t find what I am looking for...is it
there?
• How to formulate words to get what I
want
– Boolean and Web Boolean
• Which Engine to use*
What is a Search
Engine?
• Computer w/ special software (robots,
Spiders, or Crawlers) that indexes and
catalogues the Internet into a
database
• Active 24 hrs/day
• Systematic approach to indexing sites
• Creates a database that you search
through a web site
Two Ways
to Search the Web
• Search Engine
Program that searches database of Key
Words relating to Web pages
• Directory (index)
Category - subcategory - another
subcategory
When do you use which
method
• Do you have a specific object in mind:
– Email address of your old college roommate
– S.J. Mercury has to say about the
ILOVEYOU virus
• Or do you want to just Amass knowledge
– Everything about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
– All Trackball vendors on the web
• Narrow & Specific Info = Key Word Search
• Broad and General = Web Directory (Human
Reviewed)
Examples of a Web
Directory Search
• You want to create your own Web Page, but
don’t know the first thing about what it
takes....
• Web Directory like Yahoo
– Computers and Internet: WWW:
authoring
Searching By
Key Word Search
Engines
• You are planning a trip to the Galapagos
Islands and want to rent a boat to travel
between the islands....
– If you search for Galapagos boats you
will get results on both the word
Galapagos and boats.
• So, you have to learn the specifics of
Keyword Indexes....
Basic Boolean
• AND (+) result must contain all words
joined by AND (Saturn AND planet) = Fewer
Hits
• OR result must contain at least one of the
words (elevator OR lift) = More Hits
• NOT (-) result cannot contain word after
the term NOT (nirvana AND Buddhism NOT
rock NOT music) = Fewer Hits
“Advanced” or “Web”
Boolean
• ( ) - groups portions of queries together: math
AND (software OR lesson)
• “PHRASES”- query on a phrase: “space, the final
frontier”
• CAPITALIZATION- Bill, bill, Gates, gates, Digital,
digital, Lotus, lotus
Review Boolean
• Books AND endangered AND species
NOT owls
• Saturn AND planet NOT (car OR
automobile)
• (dogs OR cats) AND "pet care” AND
books NOT clinics
What do Search Engines
look for?
• Title of Document
– Internet Explorer: My Home Page
• Headings - Welcome to The Ark School
• Repeated words on the page
• Words closest to the top of the page
• Meta Tags in the <HEAD> of your HTML
document
• Hyperlinks
– Great PowerPoint Projects
Excite
Features...
• Concept-based Search Engine... it will try to
figure out what you mean, instead of just what
you say (write).
– determine meaning by calculating the
frequency with which certain important
words appear.
• HEART appears with: coronary, artery,
lung, stroke, attack, etc. VS. flowers,
candy, love, passion, etc.
• Confidence Percentile Ranking
• Personal Start Page (My Excite)
Excite
Google
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Simple, uncluttered design
Large database
Search on results
Cache Feature
“I’m Feeling Lucky” option
Google ToolBar for Windows & I.E.
Ranks in part according to how many links a
web document has from other web sites
(Popularity)
Google ToolBar
• Increases your ability to find information
from anywhere on the web - Quick to install
• Automatically appears along with the IE
toolbar.
Google ToolBar
Google Search: Access Google's search
technology from any web page.
• Search Site: Search only the pages of the
current site.
• PageRank: See Google's ranking of the
current page.
• Page Info: Access more information
about a page including similar pages, pages
that link back to that page, as well as a
cached snapshot.
• Highlight: Highlight your search terms
as they appear on the page.
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Ask Jeeves
• The first natural language search service
• It is a question-answering system
allowing anyone to ask a question in plain,
simple English without having to use
keywords or Boolean search strings.
• “The future of web navigation”
• Provides an Ask Jeeves for Kids
(filtered) option (www.ajkids.com)
www.aj.com OR www.ajkids.com
Happy Searching!
May all your searches be abundant with
accurate and appropriate hits, from now
until eternity.
;-}
Tim Landeck
[email protected]
Handouts/PowerPoint available from:
www.alisal.org/tech/conferences