Unit 1Computer Basics

Lesson 3
The Internet and Research

Objectives
List

some reasons for searching the

Internet.
Describe different search approaches.
Define a search engine.
Explain how search engines work.
Identify some of the more popular search
engines.

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Objectives (cont.)
List

some of the specialty search engines.

Describe some search tips and tricks.
Describe the subject directory search
approach.
Describe the invisible Web.

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Why Search the Internet?

Reasons

that people search the Internet

Research

for school assignments

Looking for medical and scientific
information
Travel information and accommodations
Shopping for goods and services

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Internet Search Tools

There are two basic types of Internet search tools:
Search engines
Perform searches based on keywords
Subject directories
Search by specialized topics
What is the difference between them?
Search engines are automated.
Directories are assembled by people.

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What Is a Search Engine?

Search engines are programs that allow you to

search for information.
There are hundreds of search engines on the
Internet.
Search engines allow keyword searching.
Some support concept-based searching.
Some support stemming.
The list of results returned from your search are
called hits.

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Search Engine Components

Search engines usually have three main

components.
The search engine program that does the search
of its database
A spider or crawler that looks for the information
in the database
The index that is built from information returned
by the spider

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Keyword Searches
Keyword

searches look for specific words

within a Web page.
Many search engines use meta tags to
build their search index.
Meta

tags are HTML tags in a Web page that

do not display, but can be used to define page
content.

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Keyword Searches (cont.)

Search engines also use significant words to build

their index.
Significant words may be words mentioned near
the beginning of a page or repeated frequently
throughout the page.
Some search engines claim to index all words in a
Web page.

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Keyword Search Steps

To search using keywords:

Connect to the Internet and go to a search engine
site.
Enter your keywords in the search box.
Many search engines allow you to enter a
phrase or sentence.
The search engine examines its internal database
index looking for your words.

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Keyword Search Steps (cont.)

To search using keywords (cont.):

The search engine returns a list of hyperlinks (hits)
to Web sites containing your words.
Click a hyperlink to go to that site.
If you get no hits on your search, revise your keywords
and try again.

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Major Search Engines

Although there are hundreds, these are some of the

more well known search engines:
Yahoo at yahoo.com
Microsoft at msn.com
America Online at aol.com
Ask Jeeves at ask.com
Netscape at netscape.com

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Specialty Search Engines

These also are called category-oriented search

engines.
They are commonly used for
Locating people
Finding shareware and freeware
Shopping
Sports-related information
Career planning

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A Specialty Search Web Site

This figure shows the
Beaucoup Web site page.
Note the various
categories of information
available.

Clicking a sub-category
will bring up a new page of
categories until you find
the exact topic you are
searching for.

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Tools and Techniques for Searching

Some

commonly used techniques

Phrase

searching
Search engine math
Boolean searching
Wildcard searching
Title searching

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Phrase Searching

This is used to search for words that must appear

next to each other.
Phrases must be enclosed in double quotation
marks.
Books on the Civil War
Only sites with the exact phrase will be returned as
hits.
You should capitalize proper nouns.

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Search Engine Math

Use

math symbols to enter formulas or to

filter out unwanted listings.
A

plus sign (+) before a word means it must

appear.
A minus sign (-) before a word means it should
not appear.

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Search Engine Math (cont.)

Examples

of search engine math

To

search for sites that contain both cookies

and recipes, enter
+cookies+recipes

To

exclude sites that have coconut cookie

recipes, enter
+cookies+recipes-coconut

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Boolean Searching

Boolean logic is similar to search engine math, but is

more powerful.
Boolean logic consists of three operators:
AND: Search for sites that include Word A AND
Word B.
NOT: Search for sites the include Word A but NOT
Word B.
OR: Search for sites that include Word A OR Word
B.

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Wildcard Searching

Wildcard searching allows you to search for words for

which you may not know the spelling or to search for
plurals or variations of a word.
The wildcard character (*) lets you search for any word
that has the characters before or after the wildcard
character.

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Wildcard Searching (cont.)

Wildcard

search example

To

search for the element potassium without

knowing how it is spelled, enter
PO*

or po*ium

Not

all search engines support wildcard

searches.

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Related Searching
Some search engines have a related search feature.
The search engine will return hits based on your search
criteria and may also display a list of other sites that have
information related to your search criteria.
This can greatly improve the odds of finding the
information that you want.
Note: Some sites call this feature similar pages or more
pages like this.

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Subject Directory Searching

Subject

experts personally examine Web

sites and add the URL to a search engine if
it meets standards.
Subject directories are organized by subject
categories.

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Subject Directory Searching (cont.)

Subject categories
Each category has a collection of links to Internet
resources.
The resources are arranged by subject and
displayed in menus.
You start at the top of a category and drill down from a
generic start to a specific topic.

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A Subject Directory Site

This figure shows the

Yahoo Subject Web site.

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Advantages of Subject Directory Searches

They usually provide a more guided approach than

keyword searches.
They are easy to use.
You are not searching the entire Web.
The linked sites have been handpicked and
evaluated.
Most links include a description.
They produce better quality hits on searches for
common items.

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Popular Subject Search Sites

About:

about.com
The Librarians Index: www.lii.com
Yahoo: www.yahoo.com
Galaxy: www.galaxy.com

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Advanced Search Forms

This figure shows the

advanced search form for
the AltaVista Web site. It
is designed to assist you
in performing advanced
searches by providing
text box options.

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The Invisible Web

Also

known as the deep Web

Indexes

searchable databases

Resources
www.completeplanet.com
www.profusion.com

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Summary

Search engines and directories are two basic tools

that you can use to find information on the Web.
People assemble directories; search engines are
automated.
A search engine is a software program.
Most search engines support keyword searches.

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Summary (cont.)

Concept-based searching occurs when the search

engine returns hits that relate to keywords.
Stemming relates to the search engines capability to
find variations of a word.
Meta tags are special tags embedded in a Web page;
many search engines use the tags to create their
indexes.

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Summary (cont.)

Keywords describe the information you are trying to

locate.
Search engines contain a database of organized
information.
Some search engines use natural language.
A search engine has three main parts: the search
engine software, a spider that searches for keywords,
and an index.

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Summary (cont.)

Stop words, such as www, but, and or, are not

indexed by many search engines.
A search engine uses an algorithm to index Web
sites.
Specialized search engines focus on a particular
topic.
Multimedia search engines focus on video,
animation, graphics, and music.

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Summary (cont.)

Subject directories are organized by subject

categories.
Subject experts check the Web sites that are part of a
subject directorys database.
Use double quotation marks around a set of words for
phrase searching.
Use the plus and minus signs for inclusion and
exclusion of words within a search.

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Summary (cont.)
Boolean

searching uses the three logical

operators OR, AND, and NOT.
The * symbol is used for wildcard
searching.
No single organization indexes the entire
Internet.

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