Searching Information
General Steps Identifying Key Words, Synonyms, and Key Phrases Constructing an effective search statement Advance search/boolean operators –With all of the words (AND) –With the exact phase –With any of the words (OR) –Without the words (NOT)
Search Engine An Internet software program that creates huge databases of web documents Examples: Google, AltaVista GoogleAltaVista –No search engine indexes the entire web –Not all search engines are updated in a timely manner
Search Engines Definition (Internet) Search engines that are used for searching information from web pages / websites in the internet Search engine used within an organization/institute is called enterprise search engines e.g. Public LibrariesPublic Libraries
History Google (1998)Google –most popular –renowned by its simple interface and relevant search results –Keyword search Yahoo Search (2004)Yahoo Search MSN Search (2005)MSN Search Baidu (1999)Baidu –most popular in China
Principle: Web crawler (Web spider,Web robot) program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. World Wide Web mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine The result – a listing of “ best match ” web pages that match the query keywords and are more relevant, popular or authoritative than others
Search Directory Internet directories begin with broad categories and become more specific as you descend in to the hierarchical list. Examples: Yahoo, Yahooligans, KidsClick.YahooYahooligansKidsClick
Metasearch Engine A search engine that searches multiple search engines simultaneously Examples: Dogpile, Ixquick, Vivisimo.DogpileIxquickVivisimo
Information Literacy Issue! spamdexing –Techniques employed by some Web marketers and site designers in order to fool a search engine's spider and indexing programs. The objective is to ensure that their Web site always appears at or near the top of the list of search engine results. Source: