Week 5- Using Search Engines

Week 5- Blog 5 Friday 28th March 2008


Accessing knowledge week 5 was basically all about learning to use search engines an how they work.

In the lecture it explains different engines an three basic categories of information on the web:

• The free, visible web
• The free, invisible web
• Paid databases over the web

Some examples of search engines are Google, Yahoo and Altavista.
In the lecture problems about search engines were discussed such as:

• Return of too many results
• Limited relevance or quality filtering of results to a search query
• Misuse of the page scoring/ranking system
• Building enormous indices that include erroneous, irrelevant and out-dated results to the user

Also briefly discussed in the lecture were topics such as: Directories, the search engine interface, Engine rankings (Google being most common), search engine interaction and search tips such as:
1. Use several search tools.
2. Read the search tips or help information at each search engine
3. For keyword searches use several words
4. Guess a location
5. Select the wheat from the chaff by thinking about what you want
6. Back up to find out where you are
7. Use advanced search functions to narrow down the search

Tutorial:
The workshop for week 5 basically revolved around locating, accessing and evaluating data and information from a variety of sources. We used a range of search engines to do simple and advanced searches such as Google, yahoo, Alltheweb and Lycos.

Task one: involved reading through the site “The spider’s apprentice” and listing four strategies that will help me structure a good search.

They are:
1. Knowing where to look first (There are various databases containing specific information that might be more useful to you than a general search engine)

2. Fine-tune your key words (Enter the smallest possible subset that describes what you want. Be specific. Try to meet the search engine halfway by refining your search before you begin)

3. Be refined (Read the help files and take advantage of the available search refining options. Use phrases, if possible)

4. Query by example (Take advantage of the option that many search engine sites are now offering: you can find similar sites to the ones that come up on your initial hit list)
Task two: required us to complete a quiz on the “history trivia online quiz” an show proof below:
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Task three: The strategies I used to answer the questions on the quiz were simple ones. I used the search engine Google to answer all the questions and made sure i used only main key words that were relevant to my topic. Thankfully Google had all the relevant information to successfully complete my task.

I didn’t actually learn anything new in this tutorial as i already knew how to use most of the search engines, but instead it refreshed my memory about particular search engines and how to use them .


Readings Summary:

1) Robert Harris "web search strategies" http://www.virtualsalt.com/howlook.htm -
The Internet has an enormous quantity of information, with thousands of newsgroups and billions of web pages. The two questions that face any information seeker are, (1) How can I find what I want? and (2) How can I know that what I find is any good? This article treats the first question. A companion article, "Evaluating Internet Research Sources," treats the second. Through the use of a little creativity, some patience, and a few search engines, you will be able to find just about anything you want. Many of the search tools and tool types mentioned in the article are available at "World Wide Web Research Tools."

2) Search Engines http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/chap4.htm -
This site is basically a overview on search engines and their history. They have subheadings such as "in the beginning", "How do we find information on the net?", "directories", "search engines", "databases" and "Library catalouges".

3) Search engine optimisation for companies-
This site is a link wich helps people search for businesses etc.
The site optimises businesses and helps you find the websites that relate to or for it.
Keyword Analysis- They use several sources for keyword data to provide you with an insight into the popularity of any keywords, including misspellings, that relate to your website's theme or text content.