Improving Searching on the World Wide Web
Imagine you are searching for information in the world's largest library,
where the books and journals (stripped of their covers and title pages) are
shelved in no particular order, and without reference to a central catalogue.
A researcher's nightmare? Without question. The World Wide Web defined? Not
exactly. Instead of a central catalogue, the Web offers the choice of dozens
of different search tools, each with its own database, command language,
search capabilities, and method of displaying results.
Search Engines
This is an Internet tool which will search for Internet sites containing the
words that you designate as a search term. Search engines DO NOT search the
Internet itself, but search databases of information which the company
hosting
the search engine has developed. One of the largest search engines is Google.
http://www.google.com
SUBJECT DIRECTORIES: organize the Internet sites by subjects. This lets the
user choose a subject and then browse a list of resources in that category.
Subject directories are built by humans (rather than computer programs) and
they are smaller than search engine databases. Directories depend on the
descriptors provided by the company. If these are not specific enough, your
search might be unsuccessful. As a result, directories can be good for
finding general information, but not too successful in locating
specifics."YAHOO" is the most common subject directory, others include
"ABOUT," "INFOMINE," "LOOKSMART,"
"WEBGEMS," and "WWW VIRTUAL LIBRARY."
http://vlib.org/
META SEARCH ENGINES: are search tools that do not have databases of their
own,
but search many other search engines. "Metacrawler" searchs all the
following: Lycos, Webcrawler, Excite, AltaVista, and Yahoo. Using meta
search
engines will make your search more comprehensive, but slower to obtain. Some
good meta search engines are Dogpile, Ixquick, Metacrawler, Profusion,
Surfwax.
http://www.metacrawler.com
ART AND IMAGE DIRECTORIES: Ditto.com is the world's leading visual search
engine. It allows people to search the Internet using images, because it is
easier for people to find what they're looking for when they're looking at it.
http://www.ditto.com
All in one page best search engines on the web, type keyword search into one
and if nothing is found, click back, your keyword is still there for the next
search engine
http://www.20search.com/#ALLTHEWEB
Find what you are looking for by knowing which search engine to use, try this
helpful guide
http://www.philb.com/whichengine.htm
Digital Library
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm
Soople - easy search google and advanced calculator
http://www.soople.com/
Best Online Reference Sites
http://www.rcls.org/deskref/
Evaluating Websites -- what makes a website good?
http://www.multcolib.org/homework/webeval.html
What is the most effective search strategy?
Decide whether a search engine or a subject directory is the best vehicle for
the information you need. The more specific the information needed, the more
likely you will want to use a search engine or a meta search engine. The
amount of information on the Internet can be overwhelming. to narrow your
search results, use a search engine that allows boolean operators (and, not,
or) and enter as many keywords as possible.
Get used to more than one search engine. Read the "tips"
provided by them
and
you will be surprised how easier searching becomes. For example, AltaVista
allows using the + sign instead of writing out AND.
HAPPY SEARCHING!!!!