Introduction to Web Browsers and Basic Search Strategies Using Search Engines

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Outline
History (WWW & Internet) Search tools Search Engines vs. Subject Directory Meta search Engines Steps for Searching Effective Strategies Narrow or broaden a search? Wildcards
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Internet History
Internet made up of thousands of networks worldwide No one in charge of Internet - No governing body Internet backbone owned by private companies

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Looking at the Net

Taken from: http://www.cio.com/WebMaster/sem2_net.html

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Understanding the Map

Computers use TCP/IP to communicate (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) Computers use client/server architecture

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Internet Providers:
Research and Educational Institutions Government and Military Entities Businesses Private Organizations Commercial Providers

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Internet Protocols
Email (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) Telnet (Login to remote host computer) FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - transfers files between server and client HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)

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History
WWW or Web or W3 includes all information, text, images, audio, video, and computational services that are accessible from the internet July 8, 1999 Nature - approximately 800 million pages of publicly accessible information(1) Web continues to grow, tripling in size over the past two years(2)
(1) Steve Lawrence & C. Lee Giles, Accessibility of Information on the Web, Nature 400 (July 8, 1999), 107 (2) OCLC Office of Research, June 1999 Web Statistics Web Characterization Project
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WWW
System of Internet servers that support hypertext to access several Internet protocols on a single interface Almost all protocols accessible on Internet are accessible on web (email - FTP - Telnet - etc) In addition, WWW own protocol: HyperText Transfer Protocol
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HTTP
Hypertext - means of information retreival Contains links that connect to other documents Links selected by user Virtual web of connections

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HTTP (cont)
Produce HTTP through HTML HyperText Markup Language Way of writing or creating with tags added to tell information
i.e. <b> Bold </b> yields Bold

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More History
Internet initially conceived in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (European Particle Physics Lab in Switzerland) Needed a wide variety of information to be shared and distributed to many different computers and platforms Universal readership

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Web Popular Because:

Easy to use Easy to navigate Combines words, graphics, sound, video Easy to Publish Plethora of information Reach larger audience

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Summary: Web vs. Internet

What is the relationship between the web and the Internet? The Internet contains physical components
computers networks services

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Web vs. Internet

The Internet connects thousands of computers across the world, but it is the web that allows communication to occur Web - abstraction and common set of services on top of the Internet Web - set of protocols and tools that let us share information with each other

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Directed Search Strategies

Davina Pruitt-Mentle July Design Institute July 20, 2000

How Do I Find Information on the Internet?

Join an email discussion or USENET newsgroup Go directly to a site if you have the address Browse Explore subject directory Conduct Search
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How Does Information Get Indexed by the Search Tools

A publisher of a web page can register the site with the search engine or directory Database collects data autonomously

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Browsers
Netscape Navigator (Communicator)
Product of Netscape (Now owned by AOL) Originally was dominant Multi-platform (all operating systems)

Internet Explorer
Product of Microsoft Current Dominant Browser Not available for all operating systems

Browser compatibility problems can cause web page problems

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Netscape Search

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Netscape Search
1: Access to different search engines 2. Type words or phrases into text entry box 3. Click Button 4. Preserve favorite search engine

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Internet Explorer Search

Separate Panel In Browser

Uses MicroSoft Network search

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Internet Explorer Search

Direct access to only Microsoft Networks search engines Allows easy access to different types of search

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Web pages People Businesses Maps

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Internet Keywords
Type straight in location bar of Netscape/Explorer Simple words instead of URL (uniform resource location) Words tie to websites Can be tied to language preference Example: Typing in maryland converts to http://www.state.md.us/
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Know your URLs

Address of a file on the Internet Contains type of protocol followed by the computer name, directory and file name Examples
http://www.capecod.net/Wixon/wixon.htm gopher://gopher.boombox.micro/ ftp:// wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/windows/psp3.zip mailto:[email protected]

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Anatomy of a Web Address

protocol://host/path/filename See handout Anatomy of a Web Address

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Two Basic Approaches to Searching

(although not really basic)
Search Engines Subject Directories

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Search Engines vs. Directories

Directories
Human aided, organized list May be general or subjectspecific May be able to search directory
Google - general NetTech Educational Technology Coordinator Website - subject specific

Search Engines
Computer built index of information on web More inclusive Used to find specific resources Searchable by keyword Excessive hits Every page of a Website is indexed Better for general searches, but can be used to find specific information

User has control of browsing Fixed vocabulary Links go to Website home pages only Better at general searches
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What are Search Engines?

Designed to assist you in searching through the enormous amount of information on the Web No single search tool has everything Each engine is a large database which utilizes different search techniques and tools (spiders or robots) to build indexes to the Internet (some also utilize submissions and administration)
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Which Search Engine?

Yahoo Altavista Excite Google NorthernLights Hotbot Infoseek

See Handout - The Little Search Engine that Could

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How to Choose
Consider Size of the database (# of URLs) Currency of the database (updates) Search interface Help screens Search features Results listed (# of documents retrieved) Relevance of results
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More About Search Engines

Searches for matching terms (keywords or several keywords) Results ranked by relevancy (for some) Can search by
subject or category keyword

Learn about each search engines description, options, and rules and restrictions
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GO TO

http://www.google.com/help.html

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 Searches for exact matches

Try different versions of your search term Example: Boston hotel vs. Boston hotels

Rephrase query
Example: cheap plane tickets vs. cheap airplane tickets

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 Automatically places and between words (expands search) To reduce search

add more terms in original search refine search within the current search results. (adding terms to first words will return a subset of the original query)

Exclude a word by using a sign Example: to search bass but not speaker bass speaker Does not support or operator Does not support stemming or wildcard searches Not case sensitive

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 Finds street maps

Just enter a U.S. street address, including zip code or city/state into the search box Google recognizes query as a map request

Try your address

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Phrase Searches and Connectors

Phrase Searches are useful when searching for famous sayings or specific names Gone with the Wind Phrase Connectors are recognized
Hyphens Slashes Periods Equal signs Apostrophes
Example: mother-in-law
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Stop Words
Stop words are ignored These rarely help narrow and slow down search
http com certain single digits certain single letters

to include stop words use [space]+ Example

Star Wars, Episode 1 Star wars episode +1 OS/2 OS/ +2 ***dont forget the space before the + - signs
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How to Interpret Results

See Handout
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 Combines in one search a very large fulltext Web-page database (~160 million pages) with over 5,400 searchable full-text published (print) journals and an array of online news resources

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 You may access both relevant web-pages and relevant journals and news releases Tagged
WWW like other search tools or Special Collection (published, fee-for-viewing journal articles or other publication)

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GOTO
http://www.northernlight.com/docs/specoll_help_overview.html

To obtain an item from the Special Collection:

Click on link Decide if you are willing to pay fee

Page provides citation so you can locate publication in library

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Unique Folders Approach

Results grouped in folders listed at left Folders dynamically generated by search results
From a controlled vocabulary Similar to library cataloging Not fixed like subject directories

Click on any folder to refine or further focus search Sub-folders allow you to further zero in

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Four Types of Folders

Subjects (baseball, desserts) Source descriptors (commercial, personal, magazines, databases) Types of documents (press releases, product review, maps) Languages (major Romanized languages only)

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Approaches to Searching

Basic Search Power Search Industry Search Investext Search News

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Basic Search
Http://www.northernlight.com From Home Page Allows Boolean logic Phrase in Truncation (*for many characters or % for 1 character) + requires, - excludes
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Power Search
Http://www.northernlight.com/power.html Combines ALL basic search features in one search Limits to major language or country Can select subject or document in advance

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Industry Search
http://www.northernlight.com/business.html All features of basic search Can limit by date range or industry-based subject category Default is ALL industries

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Investext Search
http://www.northernlight.com/investext.html

Search or browse thousands of investment research reports written by expert analysts.

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News Search

http://www.northernlight.com/news.html Allows on-line news searches

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Meta Search Tools

Multi-threaded search engines Allows access to multiple databases simultaneously or via a single interface (-) Do not offer the same level of control over search interface and logic as individual engines (+) Fast (+) Improvements
Results sorted by site used for search, or location of Website Able to select search engines to include ability to modify results
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Popular Meta-Search Engines

Dogpile Metacrawler Profusion SavvySearch

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Subject-Specific Search Engines

Do not index entire web Focus within specific Websites/pages within defined subject area, geographical area, type of resource Specialized search - depth rather than breath

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Selected Subject-Specific Engines

Companies
Companies Online (http://www.companiesonline.com/) Hoover's Online (http://www.hoovers.com/) Wall Street Research Net (http://www.wsrn.com/)

People (E-mail and Phone)

Bigfoot (http://bigfoot.com/) WhoWhere? (http://www.whowhere.lycos.com) Yahoo! People Search (http://people.yahoo.com/) Switchboard.Com (http://www.switchboard.com)

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Selected Subject-Specific Engines

Images
The Amazing Picture Machine (http://www.ncrtec.org/picture.htm) Lycos Image Gallery (http://www.lycos.com/picturethis/) WebSeek (http://disney.ctr.columbia.edu/webseek/) Yahoo! Image Surfer (http://ipix.yahoo.com/)

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Selected Subject-Specific Engines

Jobs
Hotjobs.com (http://www.hotjobs.com/) Monster.com (http://www.monster.com/) The Riley Guide (http://www.rileyguide.com/)

Games
CNET Gamecenter.com (http://www.gamecenter.com/) Games Domain (http://www.gamesdomain.com/) Gamesmania (http://www.gamesmania.com/) GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com/)

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Selected Subject-Specific Engines

Software
Jumbo (http://www.jumbo.com) Shareware.com (http://www.shareware.com) ZDNet Downloads (http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/)

Health/Medicine
Achoo (http://www.achoo.com/) BioMedNet (http://www.bmn.com/) Combined Health Information Database (http://chid.nih.gov/) Mayo Clinic Health Oasis (http://www.mayohealth.org/) Medical World Search (http://www.mwsearch.com/) OnHealth (http://www.onhealth.com)
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Selected Subject-Specific Engines

Education/Children's Sites
AOL NetFind Kids Only (http://www.aol.com/netfind/kids/) Blue Web'n (http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/) Education World (http://www.education-world.com/) Kid Info (http://www.kidinfo.com/) Kids Domain (http://www.kidsdomain.com) KidsClick! (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/) Yahooligans! (http://www.yahooligans.com)

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Subject Directories
Hierarchically organized indexes of subject categories User can browse through lists of Websites by subject in search of relevant information Maintained by human May include a search engine for searching their own database

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Examples of Subject Directories

INFOMINE (Academic Scholarly Subject Directory - http://infomine.ucr.edu/) LookSmart Lycos Magellan (http://www.magellan.excite.com/) Open Directory (http://www.dmoz.org/) Yahoo
Many of these have aspects of both search and directory
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Specialized Subject Directory

Guide complied by subject specialist List important resources in his/her area of expertise More comprehensive than general guide Examples
Film: Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/)

Includes Clearinghouses
Argus Clearinghouse (http://clearinghouse.net/) About.com WWW.Virtual Library (http://www.vlib.org/)
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Summary
Search Engines The Big Guys
Altavista Google Yahoo

Subject-Specific
The BigHub.com Search Engine Colossus

Subject Directory
LookSmart Lycos

Meta-Search Tools
Dogpile MetaCrawler

Specialized Subject Directory

WWW.Virtual Library About.com

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Preparing to Search
Whats the topic, question, area of interest? Identify search terms to describe your topic of interest Consider synonyms (echinoderm OR echinoidea OR "sea urchin") Consider variations of terms (restaurants, dining, gourmet)
See Handout: Practical Steps
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Search tips

Enclosing a multiword phrase in quotation marks tells the search engine to list only sites that contain that exact phrase
Example: heart disease

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Boolean Logic
Combines search terms in many databases AND, OR, and NOT or (+) and (-) Must check to see if search engines use Boolean logic

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Boolean Logic : AND

Limits your search

Oral History

&

Women

Only returns pages with both of these terms on them

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Boolean Logic : OR
Broadens your search

Oral History

OR

Women

Returns every page with either of these terms on them

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Boolean Logic : NOT

Limits your search

Oral History NOT Women

Only returns pages that contain one but not the other term on them

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Wildcards
Special Character that can be appended to the root of a word so you can search for all possible endings to that root Good for variant spellings and common root words Example
rocket* will yield rocket, rockets, rocketry psycholog* = psychology, psychological, psychologist colo*r = color and colour
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Ctrl-F
Follow a link to a document retrieved by a search engine and dont know how relevant Ctrl-F finds the relevant words in current document Example: women +El Salavdor +Oral History
Pick one link, then Ctrl-F

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Searching Summary
Choose a search engine
Personal preference Different engines for different purposes

Syntax - quotations, Boolean logic, wildcards Ctrl-F to find search words Try to stay focused on your task

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