Transcript Searching The Internet

Searching The
Internet
Open Text Searching
vs.
Subject Tree Search
Open Text Search
Search Engine scans the Web
looking for a word or group of
words you have entered as your
search string
e.g. intelligent agents
Subject Tree Search
A Subject Tree is a catalog
of a great number of pages
on the web, neatly organized by
category, sub-category, sub-subcategory,
etc. (called “hierarchical organization”)
Yahoo is one of the most comprehensive
subject tree indices; Also, Snap,
www.snap.com) and Looksmart
(www.looksmart.com) are other
(
well-known subject tree sites.
Subject Tree Search
Suppose you want to search for
information on “mutual funds”
Finance -> Investing -> Mutual
Funds
People – not robots programs –
compile subject trees, and these
people cut out links that are
useless.
Subject trees can help orient
search by showing sites that fall
into same category.
Open Text Search
You enter a keyword for the search
engine to use in scouring the Web.
The search engine returns a listing of
all the Web pages that match your
keyword, ranked in order of
relevance.
Generally, pages on which the
keyword appears the greatest
number of times receive a higher
relevance rating.
(some sights PAY their way into
“relevance”)
Search and GOOGLE
E.g. Google Displays its search
results in two ways.
First, it lists the relevant categories
(from the subject tree index portion
of the site).
Then it provides a listing of sites that
contain the keyword, with the most
relevant site at the top of the listing.
Google uses indentation to show
which pages are connected to a
particular web site.
Advanced Search
Techniques
When you want the search words to
appear right next to each other with
no words in between, type your
keywords in quotes.
electronic commerce forecast -Find all sites that have the words
“electronic”, “commerce”, and
“forecast” (not necessarily in that order
“electronic commerce forecast”
Finds all sites that have the words
“electronic”, and “commerce” and
“forecast” right next to each other, in
that order
+ “electronic commerce forecast”
+china
Find all sites that have the
words “electronic commerce
forecast” next to each other.
These pages must also contain
the word “china”
Boolean Searches Possible
(And, Or, Not) e.g.
+Automobile +Premium SizeSUV
Search / Cont.
When in doubt, use Lowercase
Lowercase keywords match both
lower and uppercase, but
uppercase matches uppercase
only.
Search / Cont.
A star (*) for the Wildcard
Suppose you want to include
“Europe” and “European”, use
+ “electronic commerce forecast”
+ “europe*
europe electronic commerce forecast
european electronic commerce forecast
Go Beyond with
Metasearch
Each search engine uses its own
technique or strategy to conduct
a search. That is why entering
the same keyword on two
search engines will usually
produce different results.
For a more comprehensive search
try a METASEARCH SITE:
Examples of Meta
Search Sites:
Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com
{18 search engines}
Metacrawler
http://www.metacrawler.com
{12 search engines}
Husky Search
http://www.huskysearch.cs.washington.
edu
Ixquick http://www.ixquick.com
{14 search engines}
Northern Light
http://www.northernlight.com
Nominal fee for many of the documents.
MetaEureka
http://www.metaeureka.com
Savvy Search
http://www.savvysearch.com/search
Meta Tags
A META tag is an HTML tag that contains
information about a Web page. The tag
does not change how a web page is
displayed, but can contain a description
of the page, keywords, and the page’s
title.
Search engines often use this information
when ranking a site.
Some search engines rank your site by
sending out a program, called a spider
to inspect the site.
The spider reads the META tages,
determines the relevance of the Web
page’s information and keywords,
And then ranks the site according to the
visits’ findings.
Meta Tags / Cont.
Not uncommon to review
competitors’ web sites and see what
META tags they are using.
ASK: “If I wanted to search for
products or services that my
company offers, what keywords
would I type when using a search
engine?”
Good idea for your site to appear in
top 10 listings (results) because
many people will not look further.
Search Engine
Registration
Register by submitting
keywords and a description of
your business
Search engine will add your
information to its database of
Web sites.
When search engine is used,
your site may appear in the list
of results.
Many search engines constantly
scour the Web, visiting and
ranking Web pages.
Search Engine
Registration/Cont.
Your page may even appear on
a list if it is not registered, if it
is linked to another site which
has been found.
Some companies will register
your web site with a major
search engine for a fee.
Details:
www.searchenginewatch.com/
Webmasters/index.html