Searching the Web

Search Engines It is important to note at the outset that, while search engines appear to search everything on the Web, large pockets of un-indexed content – for example, library databases where content is available only to subscribers – remain hidden and cannot be found using a general search engine. Google Scholar, for instance – can, in some cases, offer access to this restricted content

How it is done A search engine works by crawling the Web, indexing the content Then an algorithm calculates the relevance Most search engines rank results based on popularity and relevance. A result may be determined to be more popular by a search engine based on the number of incoming links, links pointing to that page. Ranking can also be based on user’s past search history. As the Web continues to develop, our ability to evaluate websites and the information they present will only become more important.

How to Evaluate Websites There is a lot of useful information on the Web The Web is largely unregulated and unchecked which places a burden on you to evaluate websites for quality. Using reliable and accurate websites will strengthen the argument of your research, but using information that is inaccurate or biased will weaken your paper.

Accuracy Is the author mentioning other sources of information? What type of other sites does the website link to? Are they reputable sites? Can the background information used be verified? Is the site a parody or satire of a real event? (For example, news stories found on The Onion). Is the site advertising, persuading, or stating information objectively? Does the page have a lot of grammar errors? What evidence is the author using to support their ideas? Does the site list citations or links to other resources?

Authority/Authorship Who created the page? What are their credentials/background? Are they an expert on the topic? Has the author listed a contact email or phone number? Why did the author create the page? Is the purpose to inform, sell, entertain, or persuade? What domain is the website published under? (For example, edu, gov, or com.) Does the author stand to gain anything by convincing others of their point? Are there a lot of advertisements on the site?

Date/Currency Look to see when the page was last updated or created. This will give you an idea if the author has maintained an interest in the page, or has abandoned it. How current is the information? When was the page created or last updated? Are there any dead links on the page that no longer work?

Reliable Websites One way you can judge a reliable website is to look at the domain where the website is hosted. Domain Name Institution gov (www.census.gov) government edu (www.indstate.edu) education org (www.amnesty.org) non-profit organization com (www.amazon.com) commercial

edu & gov Often, websites ending with .edu and .gov are more authoritative because certain qualifications have to be met in order to use those domains, whereas anyone can use the others. A governmental or educational domain increases only the likelihood that the content is reliable; the domain alone is not proof of reliability.

Refining Search http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 http://www.google.com/advanced_search