introduction to web browsers and basic search strategies using search engines davina pruitt-mentle...

Introduction to Web Browsers and Basic Search Strategies

Using Search Engines

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

EDUC 698M

EDUC 698M Davina Pruitt-Mentle 2

Outline• History (WWW & Internet)

• Search tools

• Search Engines vs. Subject Directory

• Meta search Engines

• Steps for Searching

• Effective Strategies

• Narrow or broaden a search?

• Wildcards


Internet History

• Internet made up of thousands of networks worldwide

• No one in charge of Internet - No governing body

• Internet backbone owned by private companies


Looking at the Net

Taken from: http://www.cio.com/WebMaster/sem2_net.html


Understanding the Map

• Computers use TCP/IP to communicate (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)

• Computers use client/server architecture


Internet Providers:

• Research and Educational Institutions

• Government and Military Entities

• Businesses

• Private Organizations

• Commercial Providers


Internet Protocols

• Email (Simple Mail Transport Protocol)

• Telnet (Login to remote host computer)

• FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - transfers files between server and client

• HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)


History• WWW or Web or W3 includes all information,

text, images, audio, video, and computational services that are accessible from the internet

• July 8, 1999 Nature - approximately 800 million pages of publicly accessible information(1)

• Web continues to grow, tripling in size over the past two years(2)

(1) Steve Lawrence & C. Lee Giles, “Accessibility of Information on the Web,” Nature 400 (July 8, 1999), 107

(2) OCLC Office of Research, “June 1999 Web Statistics” Web Characterization Project


WWW

• System of Internet servers that support hypertext to access several Internet protocols on a single interface

• Almost all protocols accessible on Internet are accessible on web (email - FTP - Telnet - etc)

• In addition, WWW own protocol: HyperText Transfer Protocol


HTTP

• Hypertext - means of information retreival

• Contains links that connect to other documents

• Links selected by user

• Virtual “web” of connections


HTTP (cont)

• Produce HTTP through HTML

• HyperText Markup Language

• Way of writing or creating with “tags” added to tell information– i.e. <b> Bold </b> yields Bold


More History

• Internet initially conceived in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (European Particle Physics Lab in Switzerland)

• Needed a wide variety of information to be shared and distributed to many different computers and platforms

• “Universal readership”


Web Popular Because:

• Easy to use

• Easy to navigate

• Combines words, graphics, sound, video

• Easy to Publish

• Plethora of information

• Reach larger audience


Summary: Web vs. Internet

• What is the relationship between the web and the Internet?

• The Internet contains physical components– computers– networks– services


Web vs. Internet

• The Internet connects thousands of computers across the world, but it is the web that allows communication to occur

• Web - abstraction and common set of services on top of the Internet

• Web - set of protocols and tools that let us share information with each other

Directed Search Strategies

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

July Design Institute

July 20, 2000


How Do I Find Information on the Internet?

• Join an email discussion or USENET newsgroup

• Go directly to a site if you have the address

• Browse

• Explore subject directory

• Conduct Search


How Does Information Get Indexed by the Search Tools

• A publisher of a web page can register the site with the search engine or directory

• Database collects data autonomously


Browsers• Netscape Navigator (Communicator)

– Product of Netscape (Now owned by AOL)– Originally was dominant– Multi-platform (all operating systems)

• Internet Explorer– Product of Microsoft– Current Dominant Browser– Not available for all operating systems

• Browser compatibility problems can cause web page problems


Netscape Search


Netscape Search

• 1: Access to different search engines

• 2. Type words or phrases into text entry box

• 3. Click Button• 4. Preserve favorite

search engine


Internet Explorer Search

•Separate Panel In Browser

•Uses MicroSoft Network search


Internet Explorer Search

• Direct access to only Microsoft Network’s search engines

• Allows easy access to different types of search– Web pages– People– Businesses– Maps


Internet Keywords• Type straight in location bar of

Netscape/Explorer

• Simple words instead of URL (uniform resource location)

• Words tie to websites

• Can be tied to language preference

• Example: Typing in maryland converts to http://www.state.md.us/


Know your URL’s• “Address” of a file on the Internet

• Contains type of protocol followed by the computer name, directory and file name

• Examples– http://www.capecod.net/Wixon/wixon.htm

– gopher://gopher.boombox.micro/

– ftp:// wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/windows/psp3.zip

– mailto:[email protected]


Anatomy of a Web Address

• protocol://host/path/filename

See handout “Anatomy of a Web Address”


Two Basic Approaches to Searching

(although not really “basic”)

• Search Engines

• Subject Directories


Search Engines vs. DirectoriesSearch Engines• Computer built index of

information on web

• More inclusive

• Used to find specific resources

• Searchable by keyword

• Excessive “hits”

• Every page of a Website is indexed

• Better for general searches, but can be used to find specific information

Directories• Human aided, organized list

• May be general or subject-specific

• May be able to “search” directory

– Google - general

– NetTech Educational Technology Coordinator Website - subject specific

• User has control of browsing

• Fixed vocabulary

• Links go to Website home pages only

• Better at general searches


What are Search Engines?• Designed to assist you in searching through

the enormous amount of information on the Web

• No single search tool has everything

• Each engine is a large database which utilizes different search techniques and tools (spiders or robots) to build indexes to the Internet (some also utilize submissions and administration)


Which Search Engine?

• Yahoo• Altavista• Excite• Google• NorthernLights• Hotbot• InfoseekSee Handout - “The Little Search Engine that Could”


How to Choose

Consider

• Size of the database (# of URLs)

• Currency of the database (updates)

• Search interface

• Help screens

• Search features

• Results listed (# of documents retrieved)

• Relevance of results


More About Search Engines• Searches for matching terms (keywords or

several keywords)

• Results “ranked” by relevancy (for some)

• Can search by– subject or category– keyword

• Learn about each search engine’s description, options, and rules and restrictions


GO TO

http://www.google.com/help.html


Searches for exact matches Try different versions of your search term Example: “Boston hotel” vs. “Boston hotels”

Rephrase query Example: “cheap plane tickets” vs. “cheap

airplane tickets”


• Automatically places “and” between words (expands search)

• To reduce search –– add more terms in original search

– refine search within the current search results. (adding terms to first words will return a subset of the original query)

• Exclude a word by using a – sign– Example: to search bass but not speaker bass –speaker

• Does not support “or” operator

• Does not support “stemming” or “wildcard” searches

• Not case sensitive


• Finds street maps– Just enter a U.S. street address, including zip

code or city/state into the search box– Google recognizes query as a map request

Try your address


Phrase Searches and Connectors

• Phrase Searches are useful when searching for famous sayings or specific names “Gone with the Wind”

• Phrase Connectors are recognized– Hyphens

– Slashes

– Periods

– Equal signs

– Apostrophes• Example: mother-in-law


Stop Words• Stop words are ignored • These rarely help narrow and slow down search

– http

– com

– certain single digits

– certain single letters

• to include stop words use [space]+• Example

– Star Wars, Episode 1 Star wars episode +1

– OS/2 OS/ +2

***don’t forget the space before the + - signs


How to Interpret Results

See Handout


Combines in one search a very large full-text Web-page database (~160 million pages) with over 5,400 searchable full-text published (print) journals and an array of online news resources


You may access both relevant web-pages and relevant journals and news releases

Tagged WWW like other search tools or Special Collection (published, fee-for-viewing

journal articles or other publication)


GOTOhttp://www.northernlight.com/docs/specoll_help_overview.html

• To obtain an item from the Special Collection:

Click on link Decide if you are willing to pay fee

• Page provides citation so you can locate publication in library


• Results grouped in folders listed at left• Folders dynamically generated by search results

– From a controlled vocabulary

– Similar to library cataloging

– Not fixed like subject directories

• Click on any folder to refine or further focus search

• Sub-folders allow you to further “zero in”

Unique Folders Approach


• Subjects (baseball, desserts)

• Source descriptors (commercial, personal, magazines, databases)

• Types of documents (press releases, product review, maps)

• Languages (major Romanized languages only)

Four Types of Folders


• Basic Search

• Power Search

• Industry Search

• Investext Search

• News

Approaches to Searching


• Http://www.northernlight.com

• From Home Page

• Allows Boolean logic

• Phrase in “ ”

• Truncation (*for many characters or % for 1 character)

• + requires, - excludes

Basic Search


• Http://www.northernlight.com/power.html

• Combines ALL basic search features in one search

• Limits to major language or country

• Can select subject or document in advance

Power Search


• http://www.northernlight.com/business.html

• All features of basic search

• Can limit by date range or industry-based subject category

• Default is ALL industries

Industry Search


• http://www.northernlight.com/investext.html

• Search or browse thousands of investment research reports written by expert analysts.

Investext Search


• http://www.northernlight.com/news.html

• Allows on-line news searches

News Search


“Meta” Search Tools• Multi-threaded search engines• Allows access to multiple databases

simultaneously or via a single interface• (-) Do not offer the same level of control over

search interface and logic as individual engines• (+) Fast• (+) Improvements

– Results sorted by site used for search, or location of Website

– Able to select search engines to include

– ability to modify results


Popular Meta-Search Engines

• Dogpile

• Metacrawler

• Profusion

• SavvySearch


Subject-Specific Search Engines

• Do not index entire web

• Focus within specific Websites/pages within defined subject area, geographical area, type of resource

• Specialized search - depth rather than breath


Selected Subject-Specific Engines

Companies

• Companies Online (http://www.companiesonline.com/)

• Hoover's Online (http://www.hoovers.com/)

• Wall Street Research Net (http://www.wsrn.com/)

People (E-mail and Phone) • Bigfoot (http://bigfoot.com/)

• WhoWhere? (http://www.whowhere.lycos.com)

• Yahoo! People Search (http://people.yahoo.com/)

• Switchboard.Com (http://www.switchboard.com)



Images • The Amazing Picture Machine

(http://www.ncrtec.org/picture.htm) • Lycos Image Gallery

(http://www.lycos.com/picturethis/) • WebSeek

(http://disney.ctr.columbia.edu/webseek/) • Yahoo! Image Surfer (http://ipix.yahoo.com/)



Jobs • Hotjobs.com (http://www.hotjobs.com/)

• Monster.com (http://www.monster.com/)

• The Riley Guide (http://www.rileyguide.com/)

Games • CNET Gamecenter.com (http://www.gamecenter.com/)

• Games Domain (http://www.gamesdomain.com/)

• Gamesmania (http://www.gamesmania.com/)

• GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com/)



Software • Jumbo (http://www.jumbo.com)

• Shareware.com (http://www.shareware.com)

• ZDNet Downloads (http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/)

Health/Medicine • Achoo (http://www.achoo.com/)

• BioMedNet (http://www.bmn.com/)

• Combined Health Information Database (http://chid.nih.gov/)

• Mayo Clinic Health Oasis (http://www.mayohealth.org/)

• Medical World Search (http://www.mwsearch.com/)

• OnHealth (http://www.onhealth.com)



Education/Children's Sites • AOL NetFind Kids Only

(http://www.aol.com/netfind/kids/)

• Blue Web'n (http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/)

• Education World (http://www.education-world.com/)

• Kid Info (http://www.kidinfo.com/)

• Kids Domain (http://www.kidsdomain.com)

• KidsClick! (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/)

• Yahooligans! (http://www.yahooligans.com)


Subject Directories

• Hierarchically organized indexes of subject categories

• User can browse through lists of Websites by subject in search of relevant information

• Maintained by human

• May include a search engine for searching their own database


Examples of Subject Directories• INFOMINE (Academic Scholarly Subject

Directory - http://infomine.ucr.edu/)

• LookSmart

• Lycos

• Magellan (http://www.magellan.excite.com/)

• Open Directory (http://www.dmoz.org/)

• Yahoo Many of these have aspects of both search and directory


Specialized Subject Directory• Guide complied by subject specialist• List important resources in his/her area of

expertise• More comprehensive than general guide• Examples

– Film: Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/)

• Includes Clearinghouses– Argus Clearinghouse (http://clearinghouse.net/)

– About.com

– WWW.Virtual Library (http://www.vlib.org/)


Summary

• Search Engines• The Big Guys

– Altavista

– Google

– Yahoo

• Meta-Search Tools– Dogpile

– MetaCrawler

• Subject-Specific– The BigHub.com

– Search Engine Colossus

• Subject Directory– LookSmart

– Lycos

• Specialized Subject Directory– WWW.Virtual Library

– About.com


Preparing to Search

• What’s the topic, question, area of interest?

• Identify search terms to describe your topic of interest

• Consider synonyms (echinoderm OR echinoidea OR "sea urchin")

• Consider variations of terms (restaurants, dining, gourmet)

See Handout: Practical Steps


Search tips

• Enclosing a multiword phrase in quotation marks tells the search engine to list only sites that contain that exact phrase– Example: “heart disease”


Boolean Logic

• Combines search terms in many databases

• AND, OR, and NOT or (+) and (-)

• Must check to see if search engines use Boolean logic


Boolean Logic : ANDLimits your search

“Oral History” & Women

Only returns pages with both of these terms on them


Boolean Logic : ORBroadens your search

Returns every page with either of these terms on them

“Oral

History”OR Women


Boolean Logic : NOTLimits your search

Only returns pages that contain one but not the other term on them

“Oral

History”NOT Women


Wildcards• Special Character that can be appended to

the root of a word so you can search for all possible endings to that root

• Good for variant spellings and common root words

• Example– rocket* will yield rocket, rockets, rocketry

psycholog* = psychology, psychological, psychologist

– colo*r = color and colour


Ctrl-F

• Follow a link to a document retrieved by a search engine and don’t know how relevant

• Ctrl-F finds the relevant words in current document

• Example: women +“El Salavdor” +“Oral History”– Pick one link, then Ctrl-F


Searching Summary

• Choose a search engine– Personal preference– Different engines for different purposes

• Syntax - quotations, Boolean logic, wildcards

• Ctrl-F to find search words

• Try to stay focused on your task

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