Web Index D irectory WEB Which kind to use? All Which kind to use? All S earch E ngine General SpecialtyGeneralSpecialty Meta-S earch E ngine
When to use an Index? Have a specific objective/site in mind. Have very specific topic – little is written. Need to search for a narrow piece of information (3 concepts): –Italian paintings Haseltine Want to be exhaustive - find many websites. Examples: –Google –Yahoo –MSN
When to use a Directory? Need general information (or answer question) on a rather general/broad topic/category (1-2 concepts). You prefer a list of relevant websites related to your topic rather than individual pages. Would like to browse (and then search) a certain area. Need quality information, carefully evaluated and even annotated. Examples: –dir.google.comdir.google.com –dir.yahoo.comdir.yahoo.com –dmoz.orgdmoz.org Note: directories tend to index only the main pages of a site!
Problems of MSEs No advanced search options. Using the lowest common denominator. Sponsored results from the SEs are not highlighted.
Vivisimo: link: Not supported?
When to use a Meta-SE? When single Basic-SE fails to provide good results. Simple Query. 1.Need (few) answers from many varied sources 2.ambiguous terms 3.need clustering for refined terms Examples: –Vivisimo/clusty (useful clustering!)Vivisimo/clusty –DogpileDogpile –ixquickixquick
How to use MSE? Simple queries Little or no field searching is available Most services return a limited number of results that do not represent the totality of results from any source engine Notice Sponsored results (may are not highlighted)
When to use All-in-one Search When you want to search multiple SEs, switch between them easily, but not in parallel. Examples: – – – – –Others:
FaganFinder (1)
FagaFinder
Freealty
Bibliography/Credits searchenginewatch.com searchenginewatch.com searchengineshowdown.com searchengineshowdown.com adviceengine.html adviceengine.html infopeople.org/search infopeople.org/search (Hebrew) hnyahoofin.html hnyahoofin.html
Exercises 1.What are the relevant/related topics to nanotechnology? 2.Find the documents containing the text: "Portal Services on the Costa del Sol and Marbella“. 3.Find the document containing the text: "formed within the glaciohydrologic system during the 1993" 4.Which search engines index the above documents (questions 2,3), which don’t (give a few examples)? Which search tools are best for the task? 5.Search the topic: recognition of glaciohydrologic supercooling alaska, How many results do you get and where is the best tool to look for it? 6.Find authoritative press releases sites. 7.What is the leading news story in Ynet at this moment? 8.How much is 1 US$ in NIS today? 9.What is the meaning of the word “Google”? 10.How many people, more or less, live in Afghanistan? 11.Find technical, non-commercial, papers about “search engine personalization”. 12.How much a 17’’ flat computer monitor cost? 13.Who link to Don’t include internal links. How many of them are from educational websites? (hint: in yahoo, use link: 14.What is the first result Google returns for the query “liar”?