XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 1 Searching the Web Using Search Engines and Directories Effectively Tutorial 3

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 2 Objectives Determine whether a research question is specific or exploratory. Learn how to formulate an effective Web search strategy to answer research questions. Learn how to use Web search engines, Web directories, and Web metasearch engines effectively.

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 3 Types of Search Questions Specific question: a question that you can phrase easily and one for which you will recognize the answer when you find it. Exploratory question: an open-ended question that can be harder to phrase; it is also difficult to determine when you find a good answer.

Specific Question New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 4

Exploratory Question New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 5

Web Search Process New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 6

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 7 Web Search Strategy You may need to reformulate, or more clearly state, your question. Try to think of synonyms for each word. Identify unique phrases that relate to your topic or question.

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 8 Using Search Engines Four Broad Categories Of Search Tools: 1.Search engines 2.Directories 3.Metasearch engines 4.Other Web resources such as Web bibliographies

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 9 Understanding Search Engines Search engine: a Web site (or part of a Web site) that finds other Web pages that match a word or phrase you enter. Search expression or query: the word or phrase you enter in a search engine. A search expression might also include instructions that tell the search engine how to search. A search engine does not search the Web to find a match; it searches only its own database of information about Web pages that it has collected, indexed, and stored.

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 10 Understanding Search Engines Hit: a Web page indexed in the search engine’s database that contains text that matches your search expression. Most search engines report the number of hits they find. Results pages: a list of Web pages in a search engine that contain hyperlinks to the Web pages that contain text that matches your search expression.

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 11 Understanding Search Engines Web robot (bot or spider): a program that automatically searches the Web to find new Web sites and update information about old Web sites that already are in the database. Most search engines allow Web page creators to submit the URLs of their pages to search engine databases. Search engine operators often sell advertising space on the search engine Web page and on the results pages.

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 12 Understanding Search Engines Sponsored links: paid placement links on results pages. Banner ad: a sponsored link that appears in a box on the page (usually at the top, but sometimes along the side or bottom of the page). Revenue from sponsored links and banner ads is used to generate profit after covering the costs of maintaining the computer hardware and software required to search the Web and to create and search the database.

Understanding Search Engines Google search results for the search term “car” New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 13

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 14 Using More Than One Search Engine Each search engine includes different Web pages in its database. Each search engines use different rules to evaluate search expressions. The best way to determine how a specific search engine interprets search expressions is to read the Help pages on the search engine Web site. Search engines change the way they interpret search expressions from time to time, so you should read the Help pages regularly.

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 15 Understanding Search Engine Databases Search engine databases store different collections of information about the pages that exist on the Web at any given time. Each search engine database indexes the information it has collected from the Web differently. Search engine robots may collect information from a Web page’s title, description, keywords, HTML tags, or read a certain number of words from each Web page.

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 16 Understanding Search Engine Databases Meta tag: HTML code that a Web page creator places in the page header for the specific purpose of informing Web robots about the content of the page. Current Developments in Electronic Commerce META tags in a Web page

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 17 Search Engine Features Page ranking: a way of grading Web pages by the number of other Web pages that link to them. URLs of Web pages with high rankings are presented first on search results pages. Natural language query interface: allows users to enter a question exactly as they would ask a person that question. Parsing: the procedure of converting a natural language question into a search expression.

Search Engine Features New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 18 Natural language query on Ask.com

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 19 Using Directories and Hybrid Search Engine Directories Web directory: a listing of hyperlinks to Web pages that is organized into hierarchical categories. The difference between a search engine and a Web directory is that people select the Web pages to include in a Web directory. Many directories allow a Web page to be indexed in several different categories. The main weakness of a Web directory is that you must know which category is likely to yield the information you desire. Yahoo! is one of the oldest and most respected directories on the Web.

Using Directories and Hybrid Search Engine Directories New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 20 Yahoo! Web directory

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 21 Using Directories and Hybrid Search Engine Directories Hybrid search engine directory: the combination of search engine and directory. Using a hybrid search engine directory can help you identify which category in the directory is likely to contain the information you need. After you enter a category, the search engine is useful for narrowing a search even further. You can enter a search expression and limit the search to that category.

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 22 Using Metasearch Engines Metasearch engine  a tool that lets you search several engines at the same.  does not have its own database of Web information  accepts a search expression and transmits it to several search engines, which run the search expression against their databases and then return results to the metasearch engine, which then reports consolidated results from all of the search engines it queried Mamma.com was one of the first metasearch engines on the Web.

Using Metasearch Engines New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 23 Mamma.com was one of the first metasearch engines on the Web.

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 24 Using Other Web Resources Web bibliographies: Web search tools that are similar to bibliographies in that they contain lists of hyperlinks to Web pages, but instead contain list of links to Web pages. Many of these resources include summaries or reviews of Web pages. Also called: Resource lists Subject guides Clearinghouses Virtual libraries

XP New Perspectives on The Internet, Sixth Edition— Comprehensive Tutorial 3 25 Using Other Web Resources Web bibliographies are sometimes confusingly called “Web directories.”  are usually more focused on specific subjects than Web directories  usually do not include a tool for searching within their categories. Web bibliographies can be very useful when you want to obtain a broad overview or a basic understanding of a complex subject area. Some Web bibliographies are general references, but most are more focused. Many Web bibliographies are created by librarians at university and public libraries.