Web Directories: Group 5 Jack Baker Laura Bingham Morgan Stewart

What it is? (M) A directory isn’t a search engine and doesn’t display lists of web pages based on keywords. Instead it lists websites by category and sub-category for example, food. Web directories can be edited by humans through the specific collection and organisation of websites featuring a shared topic. Some sites are also ran by spiders. Spiders are automated programs that collect websites of similar topics and suggest them.

General Use (L) There are many general purpose web directories that accept all different categories of websites and links to them. There are also specific and topical web directories such as ‘The Environment Directory’ which only suggest environmental sites. Other topics of directories may in radio directories, collections of websites from a particular country and search engine directories in which you can relate your own directories to an area of interest. People use web directories to quickly link themselves to other suggested websites of the same topic, it makes navigation easier and refines the websites as there’s a mass amount of websites on the www.

Examples: refined searches Yahoo, Lycos World Wide Web directories, The Radio Directory and DMOZ are all popular examples of both general and topical web directories. Example: DMOZ Use of quotations to refine search: ‘food’, refines to Recreation and then the food category. (Alphabetically ordered websites) (Also acts as a keyword, just remove quotations) Combination searches: (jobs + US) The directory refines all searches to jobs that are in the US.

Example: Advanced Search Allows a user to select a specific category, from arts to sport. Advanced searches refine results further and give the user the option to be more specific and allow a closer relation. Helps to refine the website in relation to the educational and complexity and the contents.

Example: Boolean Operators Boolean logic is the combination of words and phrases to refine searches in a database. For example using the word ‘or’ to retrieve results containing one term, the other term or both of the terms. ‘BMW or Mercedes’ could be an example. Another operation is the word ‘and’ which provides a relationship between the searches like ‘Cheese and wine’.

Example: Wildcards Finding more phrases based on the core terms. You can play with numerous variations and also try to find the exact match. For example, [cats* dogs] vs. [“cats * dogs]. The directory would find websites related to this.

Sixth Form: Web Directories (J) A web directory is a directory used on the worldwide web. Its intended purpose is to link websites with similar relating subjects or links together. Unlike a search engines web directories display websites in categories and subcategories. Examples of a web directories could be Yahoo! Or ODP. ODP or the Open directory project is a free web directory and has a large amount of listings, therefore making a very significant web directory. Most web directories are free of charge or sometimes there is a one time fee to view or add listings. The sixth form centre could use web directories to organise a trip to Staffordshire university because it would be a good way to form of basis of research. By searching for universities on a web directory they could find categories relating to certain universities. They could then search different subcategories to find out in more detail certain information about such universities.