1. Searching “Search results are only as good as the query you pose and how you search. There is no silver bullet”

2. Some of the Major Internet Sites for Searching (There are more than 2500) Altavista Ask Jeeves Google Infoseek Northernlight Excite Hot Bot Go About Magellan NetFind(AOL) Lycos Inktomi Looksmart Dogpile(Metasearch) Metacrawler(Metasearch) Mama (Metasearch) Savycrawler(Metasearch)

3. Facts 1 Billion or more Internet Documents Combining multiple search engines in a given search can increase the likelihood of finding the information desired by a factor of 3.5 or more 50% of searches find broken links Catalog – Altavista (47%)

4. Searching Search Engines (searching a database) – Index words or terms found in Internet Documents – Spiders or crawlers programs – Index (database) – Title, metatags, Expanding references, Do other pages link to the page – Factors (size of database, frequency of updates, search capabilities) – In general best for a specific piece of information rather than general information) – Google, Excite, Altavista – Meta Search Tools (Dogpile and Metacrawler) – Subject specific search engines that aim for depth rather than coverage of WWW (www.beacoup.com), www.searchengines.com

5. Searching Directories – Classify web documents into categories and then use a search engine to search their categories – Yahoo.com – They require people to view the individual Web site and determine its placement into a subject classification scheme. Once done, certain keywords associated with those sites can be used for searching the directory's data banks to find Web sites of interest. – Databases tend to be smaller than Search Engines

6. Google 100 million searches every day 97% of users find what they need most of the time 15 million visitors each month Contains its own system of measuring relevancy, partially based on number of links to that site Indexes more than 4 billion Web Pages, Index stored on 10,000 PCs Considers Microsoft and Yahoo its main competitiors 40 computer science PhD’s maintain it Employs 2,292 people

7. Evaluating Information Accuracy and Authority – Is there an author? Who wrote the page – can you contact them – Is the person qualified who wrote the page – Why was the document produced – Is their an e-mail address provided for questions – Is their an author or is it a Webmaster – What Institution is hosting the site – dissect the URL (look at the domain name)

8. Evaluating Information Objectivity – What are the goals of the page Inform, advertise or convince – How detailed in the information – Opinions or facts Currency – When was it produced – Are there dead links – When was it updated Coverage – How in-depth is the material – Do links lead to relevant information – Can you find the same information elsewhere

9. Types of Web Pages Advocacy Web Page – Democratic Party – Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Business/Marketing – IBM, DELL, Walt Disney Informational Web Page – Government Agencies – Public Transportation News Web Page Portal Web Page Personal Web Page News Web Page – Magazine – Newspapers – TV Portal – Altavista, Lycos, MSN, AOL Personal – Laurie Shteir

10. Search Tips Natural Language Boolean Algebra (AND,OR,NOT) Mozart OR Beethoven Symbols “ “, +, -_ Cherokee – jeep quotation marks for phrases“great barrier reef” python-monty Hotels+Paris-”Bed and Breakfast”