Searching the Internet
Our Quest for Knowledge in
Space
Internet Search Tools
Directories (Collections)
Search Engines
Meta-Search Engines
Invisible Web Gateways
Portals
Asking “Experts”
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Directories
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Directory Characteristics
Organizes resources
into logical subject
groups
Simple group
headings so the user
can “drill down” to
locate sub-divisions of
information and sites
Humans are involved
in the creation of the
Directory
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Yahoo
Yahoo is an example of a Web Site that is both a
Directory and a Search Engine
It is like an enormous yellow pages phone book
Yahoo is an excellent place to start – particularly
if you are looking for information about specific
organizations or specific topics
Yahoo is not, however, a complete collection of
Internet resources – not every organization or
everyone is listed
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California State Page
Designed to help meet the basic
information access for all citizens of
California.
Census data
Links to many high quality health resources
Gateway to Federal as well as State
information
One of the best Internet starting points for
California information
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Librarians’ Index to the Internet
The Librarians’ Index to the Internet is a
searchable, annotated subject directory of
Internet resources selected and evaluated by
librarians for their usefulness to Library users.
It is meant to be used by both librarians and
non-librarians as a reliable and efficient guide to
described and evaluated Internet resources.
This is an excellent collection of reviewed and
evaluated resources.
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Search Engines
Characteristics
Considerations
Strategy Development
Refining Techniques
Examples
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Search Engine Characteristics
Searches by keyword
Creates web site databases by searching
the web by robots and computer programs
Economic criteria can determine a place in
the search results
Although there are similarities, no two
Search Engines are exactly the same
(Kmart v. Wal-Mart)
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You Need More than A Search
Engine
Not all of the Internet is indexed
You should expect to miss information
which is on the Internet
Current information is often not available
through a search engine
Many Web Pages are restricted or fee-
only
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Searching Strategy
Be specific. The keywords that best
describe what you are looking for are the
way to start
Scan the results of your search for clues
(even poor results can give you clues)
How would rephrasing your search change
the results?
Is there anything usable in the results?
Fifteen-Minute Test: Know when to give up
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Typing Your Search
If you are looking for a two-word name, force the Search
Engine to treat the item as a phrase
When you enclose the words in quotes the Engine will look for
the words next to each other
If your search consistently produces the same poor
results, exclude words to narrow your results.
Use the plus sign (+) to require a word and the minus sign (-) to
exclude a word
Host Limiting
If you are looking for government information, limit your results to
only government sites
Type host:gov in your search to limit the results to only sites
containing .gov in their address
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Google
Google is “the” search tool
Very easy to use – Simple format
Results are often close to the desired
results
Although, the quality of the information is
not guaranteed
Most effective when the search term is
kept simple
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Virtual Reference Libraries
University of California at Berkeley -
Reference page with links to University libraries,
collections, electronic databases and academic
disciplines
Internet Public Library - Replicates a library
reference room "without walls" on the Internet.
Contains links to reference materials covering
computers, law, science, entertainment and
education
iTools - Basic reference tools such as
dictionaries and word lookups, as well as
language translators
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Meta Search Engines
All searches are sent to several search engines
or directories at the same time
Results from different tools are displayed on one
page.
Not all of the Internet is indexed, you should
expect some misinformation
You cannot use advanced features from specific
search engines, since those features may not be
supported by the meta-index tools
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Meta-Index Examples
MetaCrawler – An excellent searching tool that
allows you to search many of the major search
tools at once. Particularly useful Power Search
tab that allows you to pick and choose which
tools are searched
DogPile – Customizable meta-index
RefDesk – Unbelievable resource for everything
Internet
Langenberg.Com – Simple collection of search
boxes to different resources
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Invisible Web (The Deep Web)
Regardless of which tools you use, there
will always be information you will be
missing
This data is referred to as the Invisible
Web, since it is often invisible to most
search tools
That doesn’t mean that you can’t find
information on the Invisible Web, it means
that you might have to use different tools
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Invisible Web Considerations
Information is often overlooked by traditional
search tools for two basic reasons:
Internet Directories, Search Engines and Meta-
Search Engines do not gather information from every
page available on every web site.
Information in databases (such as library catalogs)
are not available through search engines.
Search engines succeed by gathering documents, but
with databases, there are no documents to gather
As more web sites use databases to store
information, the amount of information available
through traditional search tools will become less and
less useful.
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Invisible Web Strategy
Finding information on the Invisible Web is not
an easy task, but it may be the only way to find
the information that you need
Many Internet searchers give up when they do
not find information using a basic Search Engine
Before giving up, you should try some Invisible
Web search tools
Using Invisible Web tools is a two-step process:
Perform a Subject Search to find an appropriate site
(or sites)
Perform a search of the site that looks like it will be
responsive to your needs
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Access to Invisible Databases
Vivisimo – Document clustering
Complete Planet - Collection of searchable
databases
InfoMine – A collection created by
librarians. The sites are well-catalogued
and allow expanding searches based on
related subjects and keywords
Freeality Internet Search - Popular
databases
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Portals
Portals are communities of Web Sites organized
around similar interests
Suite 101.com - built by over 1,000 volunteer
“experts.” offers distractions like chat and
friendly, popular information as well as the
serious
Portals Community - A portal of portals
FAST Search – (a/k/a AlltheWeb) Currently
includes more than 200 million unique URLs in
its database
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Experts
About.com is a site of self-appointed experts in
specialized areas.
The experts create lists of sites and current
events about that topic area
The site can be helpful if you are interested in
delving into a particular topic with some depth
AllExperts.com - Experts who volunteer to
provide free answers to your individual
questions
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Who Owns The Site?
After you have found information on the Internet,
it becomes important to know the source
Sometimes it is obvious – and, sometimes it is
not at all obvious
When all else fails, look up the web site owner,
and if necessary contact that company to verify
the source of the information
There is only one site to use for this, and that is -
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Network Solutions
Every .com/.net/.org web site is registered
with Network Solutions
To find the name of the owner of a specific
site, use Network Solutions’ WHOIS
Lookup Service.
Using WHOIS allows you to type in a web
address and retrieve basic contact
information about the owner of that
domain name
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Search Tool Changes
Search Engine Watch – Search tools are
constantly changing. Search Engine Watch
keeps track of those changes, both in terms of
changing names as well as newly implemented
features.
Subscribing to the email newsletter will keep you
informed of the latest hints, tips, features and
existence of search tools
LII New This Week Mailing List – A weekly
email newsletter listing recently-evaluated and
interesting new web sites
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Site Changes
Search Engine Showdown - compilation of
studies, reports and news compiled by Greg
Notess
The Botspot - Focus on Artificial Intelligence.
“Bots" - multi-purpose, multi-site, multi-resource,
and interactive tools for locating information
about the Web, advanced Web programming,
and Web searching.
Browse "Bots by Category" or read "What's a bot?"
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The Future
Our Quest for Knowledge in Space
Continues…