|
|
Ignorance may be bliss, but it is very time consuming when it comes to searching the Web. Take this anonymous person, we'll call her Sara (or as she likes to describe herself, my "personal counterexample." She informs me that there is a price to pay for me taking her name in vain--as yet undetermined but certain to be very high). Sara describes herself as a "technophile" and has been using the Web for more than 3 years. You might think that she knows what she is doing, and is following established procedures, but that would be incorrect.
To learn about her "search strategy," I asked her how she goes about getting information from the Web. She replied, "I go to AltaVista, type in a word or set of words, and look at the first 1 or 2 pages of hits. I follow the links until I find something that looks interesting." I then asked, Do you use "Boolean operators"? (Boolean operators are terms, AND, OR, NOT, that are used to narrow your search. We'll discuss these in more depth at a later date) "Well," she said, "When I did that once it seemed to give me the same stuff as when I didn't use them, so I don't use them. They seem like a waste of time."
Now, trust me, this person is highly educated, probably more so than most. In theory she should know better. But why should she? She has been using the Web daily for quite a while. I mention Sara's case because I don't want you to be intimidated by using search engines or surfing the Web. Just because you don't know what you are doing is no reason you can't be successful. Most people don't know what they are doing and it doesn't stop them. Sara finds web searching incredibly helpful in her job, in planning vacations, in shopping, and in researching her family tree in spite of the fact that she is totally winging it, never even having read the directions for her computer.
The point of this series of articles is to show you how several search engines work. In turn, this will help you make the most of their capabilities. Once you get you acquainted with them, I think you'll be surprised to find you enjoy yourself, and will also have a more productive Web experience.
Let's take Sara's approach to searching and look for web pages that contain information about non-profit organizations. Like Sara we'll use the search engine AltaVista. When you type in non-profit organizations this is what you get from AltaVista: 4,716,350 web pages found. Phew!! That's a lot of pages. AltaVista will only provide detail on the first 200 hits, and if you're like Sara, you'll only look at the first 10 or 20 of these anyway.
So the next thing you may want to do is look at your search term non-profit organizations, (search terms are the words you enter when you are performing a search). You can add more search terms, try different search terms or try spelling your search term differently. We'll try spelling non-profit differently. So we type in nonprofit organizations, basically the same as before but minus the hyphen, and we get 77,685 web pages. Still not very good, but much better than over 4 million. Although it may appear as if we have narrowed our search that is not necessarily the case. We may have performed a different search. Now, this is the time when you begin to see how it could help to know a bit more about how all of this works.
AltaVista does not contain or index all of the pages on the Web. It only contains web pages that have been registered with AltaVista, or web pages that AltaVista has found by way of its own searching methods. For a couple of different reasons, AltaVista does not accept all of the pages that it locates or are registered. After a web page is registered, AltaVista reviews the page to determine if it will index the page and how it will be indexed on its database, theoretically making it available the next time you perform a search using AltaVista.
Keywords play a big role in determining whether you will be able to find a web page once it is registered with a search engine. When registering a web page with a search engine, keywords are sometimes entered by the person registering the page (although AltaVista is one of the search engines that does not accept keywords during registration but still uses keywords that are imbeded in the web page). These keywords enable a person performing a search to locate Web pages stored in the search engine's database. For example, someone who is a consultant for non-profit organizations could submit their Web page to AltaVista for inclusion in its database. One of the keywords used to describe the web page might be non-profit organizations. If AltaVista accepts the web page the next time a search is performed in AltaVista using the search term non-profit organizations this Web page will be one of the over 4 million Web pages found. If a search is performed using the search term nonprofit organizations, (the same word as above minus the hyphen), the next time a search of AltaVista using the search term nonprofit organizations is conducted this web page will notbe one of the 77,685 pages found since it wasn't offered to AltaVista as a keyword. What this means for the searcher is that it may be helpful to use several different versions of the same basic search term or phrase.
This is a very straightforward example of how search engines work. It is hardly complete, but it points out a few things you should remember.
Search engines are far from being a complete index of the Web. Thus, it is always a good idea to use more than one search engine when performing a search.
Because the keywords come from a variety of different sources, there is little consistency of practice. This means that sometimes you may get a lot of hits that have little or nothing to do with the topic you are searching. If this happens, it may mean you need to revise your choice of search terms.
Finally, in addition to using more than one search engine you should also read the instructions for how to use the search engines that you use on a regular basis (Yes, Sara, I mean you. To which she replies: "Where are the instructions?" The answer: they are found on the first page, under "help" or frequently asked questions/FAQ). Knowing the peculiarities of your favorite search engine will allow you to get the most out of your search. Although many of the search engines are similar, there are differences. And, you will not know what their differences could mean for the quality of your results until you look at the directions.
In the coming installments we will examine more closely how to perform a search using AltaVista and two other search engines. Go to AltaVista now and give it a try. If you have any suggestions or questions please contact me at 4npo.
For a more complete tutorial on search engines try Internet Beginners Guides & Tutorials or Sink or Swim: Internet Search Tools & Techniques.
As for Sara? Oh, she's still working her way through those 4 million hits. She says she's learning a lot, just not about the topic she was researching.
by Michael Feagans
|
|
