Searching the web

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Searching the web
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Page(s) 1-4 Description and explanation of search
  engines on the web.
• Table 1 Engine Comparison Chart - describes
  methods that are beneficial for successful
  retrieval of information from the web.
• Table 2 -Methods various search engines use to
  gather and format information for their
  databases.
• Description of some of the more popular search
  engines on the web today.
• Guidelines for the best search engine for your
  information needs.

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• Search Engines have evolved into a dynamic
  and powerful means of gathering sorting and
  selecting a wide range of information that would
  not otherwise be accessible to the general
  public. Today there are hundred of search
  engines, also called web location services,
  vying for a competitive edge on the market. These
  search engines have made the gathering and
  retrieval of information very simple for the
  user. Everyone who has had contact with the
  Internet have encountered, used or heard about
  search engine. Some claimed that search engines
  have put a great amount of power in the hands of
  the user free of cost but others question whether
  all this abundant information actually comes with
  a price.

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• The creation of the search engine can be
  accredited to Allen Emtage, a grad student, who
  wrote a program that automatically searched for
  keywords appearing in archives coded in File
  Transfer Protocol (FTP, the language created to
  send net files). He later released this program
  in 1989 which he called Archie. Other search
  tools such as Veronica and Wide Area Internet
  Services (WAIS) were later created. These search
  tools basically gathered general keywords
  describing the topic you inputted and the sources
  where these tools should look. They then were
  able to best match the criteria by looking into
  the index and counting how many times each item
  contained the selected keywords. Unfortunately,
  Emtage did not file a patent application and
  presently a Anchover Mass. Company has claimed
  patent rights and are presently disputing patent
  infringement rights of other search tools
  companies. The battle continues but that does not
  prevent the scores of new search engines from
  being created very day.

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• Today we are bombarded with hundred of
  search tools crawling the Internet. In order to
  access information on any search engine, you must
  type in a keyword. Then the search engine takes
  the keyword(s) and search for documents that have
  the keyword(s) requested. The amount of returns
  of keyword(s) found in the documents will
  determine which documents to chose. A search
  engine usually displays the results page by page.
  There usually thousands of documents on the Web
  that seems to relate to an inquiry. As it is
  impossible to look through so many documents, it
  is best to confine your enquiry to a particular
  topic in order to achieve satisfactory results.
  In order to find what you need from a search
  engine it is best to analyze your information
  needs, create queries and select appropriate
  search strategies. Depending on your specificity
  to a particular topic, it is best if you have a
  distinct idea of what you are searching for.

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• There are tricks and pitfalls in search engines
  that a user should be aware of. Due to the
  increasingly competitive nature of the World Wide
  Web, site owners have take drastic steps to
  ensure that their sites are seen as many people
  as possible. Usually Corporations and Businesses
  try to attract potential customers by using
  tricks to guarantee that their sites are seen. A
  key feature of this type of practice is keyword
  spamming. Keyword spamming is the use of
  multiple keywords in documents to ensure that
  their sites are placed on the top of the hit
  list. Another method is the use of hidden text.
  Black text is hidden against a black background
  in web pages to ensure that it gets at the top of
  the list. Also some site owners just simply pay
  the search engines to place their sites at the
  top. The abuse of keywords and other aggressive
  means are only a few of the techniques used to
  ensure popularity.

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• These questionable practices are now being
  employed as it guarantees popular hits. This
  does not guarantee however that these sites are
  indeed the best ones but in order for a user to
  effectively benefit from the information on the
  web, he needs to know what to look for and what
  to discard. Search engines are vast in numbers
  and it is best to use well thought out keywords
  and prior knowledge of exactly where to search
  for the information. The primary purpose of most
  search engines to get as many visitors to the
  sites listed as possible. Many web sites are
  caught up in the grand idea of getting as many
  hits as possible and they fail to realize that in
  order to maintain the optimum quality of service
  possible they must provide quality information.
  

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• Bruceclay.com provided excellent ideas to improve
  and design your site to best suite the general
  needs of the user. One suggestion was using a
  follow the leader method when selecting
  keywords and page wording. Meta tags in the
  source codes of the sites control keywords in
  search engines and the right keywords are the
  backbone for receiving popularity for a site.
  Knowledge of the keyword of competitors and
  improving and maintaining quality information is
  the next step to maintaining a popular ranking on
  a search engine This is by no means similar to
  keyword spamming as proper selection of
  keywords will enable a site to maintain
  popularity.

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• There are different types of web resources that
  can help you to find the answers to your
  questions
• Subject tree
• A subject tree is a hierarchically organized
  category of topics with lists of web sites and
  online documents relevant to each topic. Also
  called directories.
• Clearinghouse
• A collection of Websites and online documents
  about a specific topic. Clearinghouses are
  similar to subject trees but on a larger scale
• General search engine
• Indexes a large collection of web pages that
  users retrieve by entering keywords. General
  search engines rely heavily on web spiders to do
  most of the sorting and gathering. These
  databases are huge and sometimes the relevant
  information may be hidden deep in the list.
  Providing specific and relevant keywords to your
  search is idea in order to retrieve information

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• Specialized search engines
• Similar to general search engine but is limited
  to specific web pages. Takes the concept of the
  clearinghouse but does more than just provide
  links to the documents. The specialized search
  engine provides the actual documents. These are
  handpicked that a user has selected as relevant
  to the topic.
• The best search engines offer a simply query
  option where you type full sentences or question
  that describe your information needs. The engine
  with the most pages in the database is not
  necessarily the best search engine. The chart
  attached indicates the best search engines to
  date even though this is always subjected to
  change. There are many types of search engines
  ranging from general information to specialized
  information. The compilation of databases of
  documents and indexing of these documents provide
  users with on the spot result if queries are
  successful.

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• Again, there are hundreds of search engines that
  specialize in different levels of searches. By
  using web spiders, search engines create and
  update their document databases automatically. A
  web spider is a computer program that searches
  for Web pages and collects, update, replace and
  renew old pages or find new web pages. This
  program keeps a list of all the Uniform Resource
  Locators (URL) and returns all the information
  to the search engine. There are numerous
  techniques used to index these documents and
  large search engines constantly run Web Spiders
  to index as much information as possible of the
  Web. There are many things on the Internet that
  are legitimate but quite a bit of the information
  found is also very unreliable. Therefore, it is
  best to be critical of some of the information
  received. The bottom line however is that in
  order to get satisfaction from search engine,
  users must be aware of the nature of their query.
  
• phttp//www.submitcorner.com
• http//webreference.com/search/background.html
• http//ariade.ac.uk/issue10/search engines
• http//searchability.com/about.htm

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Choose the Best Search for Your Information Needs

• http//www.searchenginewatch.com/
• http//nuevaschool.org/debbie/library/researh/adv
  iceengine.html
• End