Search Tools for the Internet

1. Search Tools for the Internet M. Rosettis St. Augustine CHS Adapted from: Kathy Schrock <http://www.capecod.net/schrockguide/>

2. Agenda • Definition of a search engine • How a search engine works • Definition of a subject directory • How Subject Directories work • Meta Search Engines • Improving your Internet Use: search strategies that work!

3. What is an Internet search engine? • An Internet tool which will search for sites containing the words that you type in as a search term • Search engines search their own databases of information

4. What are some search engines? AltaVista Google Teoma HotBot Excite

5. How does a search engine work? • Deploys a robot program called a spider or robot designed to track down Web pages, to follow the links these pages contain, and add information to their own database • Each search engine has its own way of doing things – read the Help Files

6. How does a search engine work? User

7. What do the search results mean? • Results are presented in order of relevance • Beware: Web page designers often try spamdexing (embedding search terms many times in a hidden field) • Engines use different methods of collection – don’t be afraid to search using a number of Search Engines

8. What is an Internet subject directory? • Organizes Internet sites by subject • User works down a series of menus • Smaller than search engines • Maintained by human beings

9. What are some subject directories? Look Smart Yahoo Canada Google About Internet Public Library

10. How does a directory work? User

11. Choose a subject from the top menu Navigation by clicking on links

12. Number of Web Sites Choose a category

13. How can I improve my use of search engines? • Read the help files • Learn about truncated searches • Learn about Boolean searching • Learn about wildcard searches

14. Truncated Searches • A special symbol which allows you to search simultaneously for several words with the same stem computer Comput* computers computing computer careers computations

15. Wildcard Searches • Let you search for numerous word versions • Use the “?” symbol in your search word • Example: m?n = man or men or msn wom?n = woman or women

16. Boolean Searches • Let you to broaden a search • Let you to narrow a search • Operate differently in each search engine

17. How do I narrow a search using “and”? • Using and will only provide links to sites which have BOTH of these words present

18. How do I narrow a search even more? • Using and twice will limit the search even more • You will only get pages that include all THREE of the terms

19. How do I narrow a search using “not”? • Using not narrows the search by telling the search engine to exclude certain words • AltaVista uses the form and not elementary

20. How do I broaden a search? • Use of the word or will broaden a search • Use or if two words may be used interchangeably • Can use or more than once to get very broad

21. Google: Advanced Search

22. HotBot : Advanced Search Options

23. Yahoo Canada : Advanced Search Options

24. What is a ‘Meta’ Search Engine? • does not create its own information database • It searches the databases of other engines • Allows you to look through many pages from different search engines at once • Best to use only when you are having trouble locating information on your topic

25. What are some Meta Search Engines?

26. Hints for searching Use unique keywords Check your spelling Use quotation marks around phrases Try using different search engines Read the help files

27. Adapted from: Kathy Schrock http://www.capecod.net/schrockguide/ M. Rosettis - School Library Information Centre - St. Augustine C.H.S.