Transcript Net Search (PowerPoint)

Contents
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Search Engines
Meta Engines
People Directories
Subject Directories
Domains explained
URLs explained
Hypertext Language
Search Engines
When will I use them?
• Use when looking for information
about a specific topic.
E.g. Bastille day
Search Engines
What are they?
• Search engines
allow keyword
searches on the
World Wide
Web.
How do they work?
• Information is
gathered by
programs called
robots or
spiders.
Useful Search Engines
AllTheWeb
http://www.alltheweb.com/
Google
http://www.google.com/
Hotbot
http://www.hotbot.com/
Meta Engines
What are they?
• Meta engines are
programs which query
multiple web sources
(search engines, web
directories and/or other
specialized databases).
They do not have their
own databases.
How do they work?
• They send queries
simultaneously to their
specified web sources
(varies with each meta
engine). Many of them
integrate the search
results and rank
according to
various criteria.
Meta Engines
When will I use them?
• Use these engines when you want
the highest recall of documents on a
specific subject.
Useful Meta Engines
Beaucoup
http://beaucoup.com/
Ixquick Metasearch
http://www.ixquick.com/
Profusion
http://www.profusion.com/
People Directories
What are they?
• People directories are
often referred to as
‘whitepages’ and
include directories of
email and snail mail
addresses and
telephone numbers.
How are they organized?
• The information is
gathered by robots or
by submissions by
individuals.
People Directories
When will I use them?
• Use when looking for email and
snail mail addresses and
telephone numbers.
Useful People Directories
WhoWhere
http://www.whowhere.com/
IAF (Internet Address Finder)
http://www.iaf.net/
Whitepages
http://wp.superpages.com/
Subject Directories
What are they?
• An index or
catalog of
Web sites.
How are they organized?
• They are
organized
by humans.
Subject Directories
When will I use them?
• Use when looking for general information
about a topic.
E.g. education, medicine
• Use when looking for a list of sites which
have been selected by human experts.
Useful Subject Directories
LookSmart
http://www.looksmart.com/
Lycos
http://www.lycos.com/
Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com/
Domains Explained
What are they?
• A domain name is a meaningful and easyto-remember “handle” for an Internet
address.
• The domain name system (DNS) is the
way that internet domain names are
located and translated into computer
addresses.
Domains Explained
How do they help?
• The DNS includes:
• Name of country
 e.g. ca for Canada
 e.g. fr for France
 E.g. au for Australia
• Type of organization
 e.g. com for commercial
 e.g. edu for educational
 e.g. gov for government
• Name of organization
 e.g. brown for Brown University
URLs Explained
What are they?
• URLs are
World Wide Web addresses
U = Uniform
R = Resource
L = Locator
URLs Explained
• The URL for Brown University is:
An example
http://www.brown.edu
• Typically a WWW address includes:
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http://
www
brown
edu
- hypertext transfer protocol
- World Wide Web
- name of the organization
- type of organization
Web Browsers
What are they?
• The web browser is a software
program installed on your PC that lets
you look at (or “browse”) websites.
• Popular browsers include:
– Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Mosaic.
Hypertext links
What are they?
• The Web is based on a system called
hypertext markup language (HTML).
• Hyperlinks are used to link information
within documents and between
documents on the World Wide Web.
Hypertext links
Recognizing hyperlinks
• Hyperlinks appear as:
 Icons
 Images
 Text
• Text links are commonly a different
color and are usually underlined.
Works Cited
Barlow, L. “How Search Engines Work.” The Spider’s Apprentice: A
Helpful Guide to Search Engines. 22 Sept. 2001. Monash
Information Services. 4 Oct. 2001 <http://www.monash.com/
spidap4.html/>.
Henninger, M. Don’t Just Surf: Effective Research Strategies for the
Net. Sydney: U of New South Wales Press Ltd, 1999.
Tyner, R. “Internet Search Tools & Techniques.” 19 June 2001
M.L.S. Okanagan U College. 4 Oct. 2001 <http://www.sci.ouc.
bc.ca/libr/connect96/search.htm>.
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www.sybasigns.com.au
C 2001 Syba Signs