Transcript Web Directories - OCRNat

Web Directories:
Group 5
Jack Baker
Laura Bingham
Morgan Stewart
What it is? (M)
• A directory isn’t a search engine and doesn’t display
lists of web pages based on keywords. Instead it lists
websites by category and sub-category for example,
food.
• Web directories can be edited by humans through
the specific collection and organisation of websites
featuring a shared topic. Some sites are also ran by
spiders. Spiders are automated programs that collect
websites of similar topics and suggest them.
General Use (L)
• There are many general purpose web directories that
accept all different categories of websites and links to
them.
• There are also specific and topical web directories such as
‘The Environment Directory’ which only suggest
environmental sites. Other topics of directories may in
radio directories, collections of websites from a particular
country and search engine directories in which you can
relate your own directories to an area of interest.
• People use web directories to quickly link themselves to
other suggested websites of the same topic, it makes
navigation easier and refines the websites as there’s a mass
amount of websites on the www.
Examples: refined searches
• Yahoo, Lycos World Wide Web directories, The
Radio Directory and DMOZ are all popular
examples of both general and topical web
directories.
• Example: DMOZ
• Use of quotations to refine search: ‘food’, refines
to Recreation and then the food category.
(Alphabetically ordered websites) (Also acts as a
keyword, just remove quotations)
• Combination searches: (jobs + US) The directory
refines all searches to jobs that are in the US.
Example: Advanced Search
Advanced searches refine
results further and give
the user the option to be
more specific and allow a
closer relation.
Allows a user to select
a specific category,
from arts to sport.
Helps to refine the
website in relation to the
educational and
complexity and the
contents.
Example: Boolean Operators
• Boolean logic is the combination of words and
phrases to refine searches in a database. For
example using the word ‘or’ to retrieve results
containing one term, the other term or both
of the terms. ‘BMW or Mercedes’ could be an
example. Another operation is the word ‘and’
which provides a relationship between the
searches like ‘Cheese and wine’.
Example: Wildcards
• Finding more phrases based on the core
terms. You can play with numerous variations
and also try to find the exact match. For
example, [cats* dogs] vs. [“cats * dogs]. The
directory would find websites related to this.
Sixth Form: Web Directories (J)
A web directory is a directory used on the worldwide web. Its
intended purpose is to link websites with similar relating subjects or
links together. Unlike a search engines web directories display
websites in categories and subcategories. Examples of a web
directories could be Yahoo! Or ODP. ODP or the Open directory
project is a free web directory and has a large amount of listings,
therefore making a very significant web directory. Most web
directories are free of charge or sometimes there is a one time fee to
view or add listings.
•
The sixth form centre could use web directories to organise a
trip to Staffordshire university because it would be a good
way to form of basis of research. By searching for universities
on a web directory they could find categories relating to
certain universities. They could then search different
subcategories to find out in more detail certain information
about such universities.