Week 9, Using Search Engines, 02-10-2007

LECTURE

The week nine lecture was all about searching for information. As stated by Justine, looking for information on the www can be a difficult task because of the large amount of information that is found on the www. There are two main types of searching on the www, in the form of search engines and Directories. Search engines are websites specifically made to sort information found on the www, giving a number of computer picked sites that closely fit the keyword from your search. This results in a large variety of sources of information. An example of a search engine is ‘Google’. Directories are sources chosen by humans. This results information that is more reliable and searches are shorter, for example ‘Yahoo’. There are many problems that are caused by search engines such as thousands of results, information not particularly relative and the information is not Quality control. Also the ranking of the information is a problem as well. With some search engines, the information is sorted by how much the company pays the search engine, briefly said by Justine.

When doing research, writing in keywords, phrases and using advanced features will help you significantly in filtering the information which you have searched, often giving the most relevant information within the first few results. Ways to ensure that you acquire the most important results include the use of search engine tools to search for information, use several key words, guessing the location, thinking about what you want, and having back up to find where you are. These are all helpful tips that were presented to the lecture by Justine.

TUTE

There are four strategies that should be used when using search engines, that I had to find in this weeks tute. Such things as knowing how the search engine that you are using works. Yet again it comes up all the time, knowing the information that you want. What are the results that come up? Are some more frequent and the last one is what sort of keyword search are you doing. These are the four that I have compiled and I believe are correct, use several search tools, read the search tips or search information at each search engine, for keyword searches use several words and use phrases when searching for something specific

We also had to do an online test. This test consisted of 20 questions which are hard to know off by heart. The main point of the task is to prove that you have the capability to use other search engines. With these search engines I also had to prove that I know what sort of key words that I should put in.



The first question, what civilisation is associated with the once great city of Machu Picchu the spectacular ruins of which were rediscovered in 1911? From this I entered the search, Machu Picchu and 1911 in a search.

The Internet is obviously are very large network of information. Finding that information can be a difficult task to do. Using search engines can narrow down the time. But from what I have learnt, using search engines can take just as much time up. Paying particular attention to keywords will go along way in knowing what your search results are. Only using words that are useful should be consider. Helping me do research, I use mainly Google but the others that I have used are, ask Jeeves and also yahoo. Making sure what the keywords that you use are good, will narrow down the amount of results. Also never take the first result, as it could be nothing, because as I found some of the results are there, because they are payed for.

Google:


Yahoo:


READINGS

Robert Harris: "Web Search Strategies" - This reading was about solving the problem of, finding the information a person wants on search engines and also finding out if the information that is given is good enough. It gives you tips and strategies in working out what best for you. At the bottom it gives six search tips and a “life saver tip.”

The Spider's Apprentice – The second sentence of this website tells you the purpose, which is to provide the user with a better understanding of search engines. It provides a list of links on the side, which are there to help you. This website also gives strategies in finding information on the Internet.

Search Engine Watch – Yet again this is a website that provides a large list of links that help the user finding ways to get better information. There is a large amount of links listed. I saw one link that was for the above reading.

The History of the Internet: (Chap 4 - Search Engines) – This website was all about the history of search engines. It gives a brief history from the 1980’s to the late 1990’s. It has a list of different search engines and gives a brief overview of each one. I found that the search engines are listed by popularity.