HOW TO DO USE SEARCH ENGINES

SEARCH ENGINES• Search engines is a program that searches a database of

Web Pages for words that you supply and then lists hyperlinks to a page that contain those words.

• Examples include;

• Google, Bing, Yahoo, AltaVista, cuil, Excite, Go.com, AllTheWeb, Galaxy, search.aol, LiveSearch, Lycos, GigaBlast, AlexaInternet, HotBot, Excite, Snap, Ask Jeeves, Go Network, GoTo, WebCrawler, About, Looksmart,

SEARCH ENGINES CONT…• Two Common problems in searching the Web are;• Search engines usually return many more hyperlinks than it

is possible to access with many of the hyperlinks containing unrelated information.

• Different search engines find different pages because each engine has its own database of hyperlinks and its own method of determining a match.

SUBJECT TREE OR INTERNET GUIDE• Some search provide a list of sites separated into

categories

• Yahoo uses this feature

• (i.e. Art & Humanities

• – News & Media

• – Business & Economy

• – Recreation & Sports)

ADVANCED SEARCH TECHNIQUES• Boolean Logic• Listing hawaii in the AltaVista search engine return

2,000,000 matches,

• but the criteria hawaii + resort lowers the number to 300,000.

ADVANCED SEARCH TECHNIQUES• The “+” (Plus Sign)• Can be used to limit a search to only those web pages

containing those two words.

• It is possible to use more than one + To refine a search i.e. florida+hotel+pool

• Returns only web sites containing those three words

• (NOTE): don’t use a space between the + and the next word

ADVANCED SEARCH TECHNIQUES• You can also use the word “and” in place of the + (plus

sign)

• A common search technique is to use several synonyms for a word (i.e. house cottage bungalow)• or

• The word “or” can be used in place of a space

ADVANCED SEARCH TECHNIQUES• - (minus sign) is used to exclude unwanted web pages.• i.e. Shakespeare – play Returns hyperlinks to pages

containing the word Shakespeare, but eliminates pages that also contain the word “play”.

• not• Can be used in place of the – (minus sign)

ADVANCED SEARCH TECHNIQUES• Examples:

• horse+buggy-carriage• tuna salmon-salad• recipe chicken-soup• university+connecticut-yale