The Internet 8th Edition Tutorial 4 Searching the Web

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition 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

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Objectives Use Boolean logic and filtering techniques to improve your Web searches Use advanced search options in Web search engines Assess the validity and quality of Web research resources Learn about the future of Web search tools

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Types of Search Questions A specific question is a question that you can phrase easily and one for which you will recognize the answer when you find it An explanatory question is an open-ended question that can be harder to phrase; it also is difficult to determine when you find a good answer

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Types of Search Questions

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Types of Search Questions

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Web Search Process Before beginning a Web search, decide whether the question is specific or exploratory Four steps of a Web search

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines Web search tools include four broad categories of sites: –Search engines –Directories –Metasearch engines –Other Web resources such as Web bibliographies

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines A Web search engine is a Web site (or part of a Web site) that finds other Web pages that match a word or phrase you enter The word or phrase you enter in a search engine is called a search expression A hit is a Web page that is indexed in the search engine’s database and that contains text that matches a specific search expression All search engines provide a series of results pages, which are Web pages that list hyperlinks to the Web pages containing text that matches your search expression

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines A Web robot, also called a bot or a spider, is a program that automatically searches the Web to find new Web sites and update information about old Web sites that are already in the database A hyperlink to a Web page that no longer exists or has been moved to another URL is called a dead link A paid placement is the right to have a link to your Web site appear on the search results page when a user enters as specific search term

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines Most, but not all, search engines label these paid placement links as “sponsored,” and they are usually called sponsored links If the advertising appears in a box on the page, it is usually called a banner ad

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines A meta tag is 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 Search engines that store a Web page’s full contents are called full text indexing engines Many search engines omit stop words such as and, the, it, and by from their databases

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines Search engine features: –Page ranking is a way of grading Web pages by the number of other Web pages that link to them –Inbound links are the connections or links from other pages –Most search engines use stemming to search for variants of keywords automatically –A natural language query interface allows users to enter a question exactly as they would ask a person that question –The procedure of converting a natural language question into a search expression is sometimes called parsing

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines Using Directories and Hybrid Search Engine Directories: –A Web directory is a listing of hyperlinks to Web pages that is organized into hierarchical categories –The combination of search engine and directory is sometimes called a hybrid search engine directory

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines Using Metasearch Engines: –A metasearch engine is a tool that combines the power of multiple search engines

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Using Search Engines Using Web Bibliographies: –The Web includes Web bibliographies, another category of resource for searching the Internet. –Web bibliographies are also called resource lists, subject guides, clearinghouses, and virtual libraries

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Complex Searches with Boolean Logic and Filtering Techniques Boolean algebra is the branch of mathematics and logic in which all values are reduced to one of two values Boolean operators, also called logical operators, are a key part of Boolean algebra

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Complex Searches with Boolean Logic and Filtering Techniques Search engine expression operators: –A precedence operator, also called an inclusion operator or a grouping operator, clarifies the grouping within a complex expression and is usually indicated by the parentheses symbols –A location operator, or proximity operator, lets you search for terms that appear close to each other in the text of a Web page

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Complex Searches with Boolean Logic and Filtering Techniques A wildcard character allows you to omit part of a search term The asterisk (*) is the most common wildcard character

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Complex Searches with Boolean Logic and Filtering Techniques Many search engines allow you to restrict your search by using search filters A search filter eliminates Web pages from search results Some search engines provide specific filtering options in addition to or instead of Boolean operators Clustering is effective when a word in the search expression has multiple meanings

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Complex Searches with Boolean Logic and Filtering Techniques A static Web page is an HTML file that exists on a Web server computer Many Web sites store information in a database, and when a user submits a query, the site’s Web server searches the database and generates a Web page on the fly that includes information from the database These generated pages are called dynamic Web pages

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Complex Searches with Boolean Logic and Filtering Techniques Deep Web, hidden Web, and invisible Web are terms for the information contained in the databases that some Web sites use to generate dynamic pages

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Evaluating Web Research Resources The first step is to determine who authored the page Consider whether the qualifications presented by the author pertain to the material that appears on the Web site Author information should include details about the author’s affiliations with organizations that might have an interest in the information on the site

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Evaluating Web Research Resources It can be difficult to gauge relevance of the content you find on the Internet A Web site that is a legitimate source of accurate information usually presents its information in a professional form that helps convey its validity Wikipedia is a Web site that hosts a community-edited set of online encyclopedias in more than a dozen different languages

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Summary Specific and exploratory searches Formulating an effective Web search strategy to answer questions Using Web search engines, Web directories, and Web metasearch engines

New Perspectives on the Internet, 8 th Edition Summary Using Boolean logic and filtering techniques Using advanced search options Assessing the validity and quality of Web research resources The future of Web search tools