ABINGTON HEIGHTS MIDDLE SCHOOL

Computer Technology

What is a Search Engine? (And how do I use it?) There are millions of sites on the Internet and more being added every day. This often makes it difficult to find the information you need, and to find it without having to search for a bazillion hours.

There are two types of tools that will help you find what you need: directories and
search engines. They're both useful for different types of searches, so
knowing how each works can help you decide which one to use.

Keywords

Keywords are synonyms or phrases that describe your topic. These are the words the search engine uses to find
what it thinks are sites that match what you're looking for.

Examples of Keywords for "Dogs"

puppies
Pit Bulls
hounds
canines

(If you're using a directory for your search, you don't have to use keywords--you may simply follow the subject links
provided by the directory. However, most directories allow you to input keywords at any point along your search
path.)


Tips for Conducting Your Search

1.Brainstorm and write down words and phrases that describe your topic before you hop on the Web.
2.Use a directory if you're searching a broad subject area or haven't quite decided what part of a particular
topic to cover.
3.Use a search engine if you know exactly what your topic is and have some knowledge of the words typically
used to describe it.
4.If you're using a search engine rather than a directory, start with specific keywords and if you get too few
hits or none at all, broaden your search (e.g., search "sharks" instead of "porbeagle").
5.Try more than one search tool.
6.Evaluate the sites you find as much as possible for reliability.


(Search engines often return tons of "hits," many of which have absolutely nothing to do with your topic. It's always
a good idea to scroll through the first 20 or 30 hits, even if the list is over 100,000 hits. Then alter your search
strategy, using what you learned from your gargantuan search, and try again.)

Interesting !!!

Yahoo

Yahoo is somewhat unique.

Yahoo works like this: every Web page which is included in the Yahoo index is added by a *human*. A human
physically reads the Web page, then adds it to Yahoo after manually determining what category it fits under.
So, instead of dumbly telling you that 300,000 pages Out There contain the words "native american history," Yahoo
tells you that there are 50 pages which really fit into the category of Native American history.

The disadvantages of Yahoo's system are (1) it costs a lot to pay humans to add Web pages manually, (2) humans
will never work fast enough to keep up with millions of new Web pages being created, so the index will always be
incomplete, and (3) the human-index search is only good at category searches.

Parts of this document were provided by Vailey Oehlke, School Corps Librarian, Multnomah County Library.