Transcript Internet Search Strategies - University of South Carolina

Internet Search Strategies
USCS | An Adventure of the American Mind | Revised: 05/26/04
Ask: What do I want to do?
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Browse?
Locate a specific piece of
information?
Retrieve everything I can on the
subject?
Your answer will determine your
strategy.
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
Browse?
Locate a specific piece
of information?
Retrieve everything I
can on the subject?

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
Use a subject directory
or a mega/meta-search
engine
Go to a major search
engine or a specialized
database
Try the same search on
several engines and
use resources off the
web too
SEARCH ENGINES
EXAMPLES
Created by computer robots or
Alta Vista
spiders, which travel the Web on a
Google
regular basis gathering and indexing AlltheWeb
information.
Excite
Hotbot
Collected information is searched
Lycos
with keywords or phrases.
No browsing or subject categories.
Cover a much larger part of the
Web than the subject directories.
Has features to narrow and refine a
search.

SUBJECT DIRECTORIES
Created and maintained by human editors
who review and select sites based on some
predetermined criteria.
Arranged in hierarchical subject categories
and sub-categories.
Does not search text, but rather the title and
description of the site.
Often indexes only the home page or top
level pages of a site.
Best for browsing or searching using
general terms.
Good source for popular topics,
organizations, commercial sites and
products.
EXAMPLES
Yahoo!
About.com
Beaucoup
CompletePlanet
LookSmart
Lycos
Open Directory
Project
Academic Info
Infomine
Librarian's Index
META-SEARCH ENGINES
EXAMPLES
Sends your search query to several
individual search engines at one
time and compiles the results.
Useful for simple searches and
determining which search engine to
use.
Typically they catch only about
10% of search results in any of the
search engines they visit.
Metacrawler
IXQuick
Dogpile
CNET:Search
Metor
Profusion
Vivisimo
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SPECIALIZED DATABASES
EXAMPLES
The "invisible web," databases, such as
those maintained by academic institutions
and government agencies.
High quality information sites.
Database content is not indexed by
general search tools.
Uses its own search box into the
contents of the database.
Some databases are subscriptions and
available only to authorized users with a
password or some are only available in a
library because license agreement does
not allow off-site users.
FirstGov
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MN West
Databases
InvisibleWeb.co
m OR
Invisible-Web.net
Internet Movie
Database
Tips for General Searching
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My Plump Starfish Quickly Lowered Lincoln’s
Tie
(-) (+) +meat -potatoes, +saturn –car
*
“”
librar* returns library, libraries, librarian, etc.
colo*r returns color (American spelling) and
colour (British spelling)
"bye bye miss american pie"
•president retrieves both president and President
•If you have a web page and would like to know who is
linking to it, EXAMPLE: link:www.memory.loc.gov/
•Searching for a keyword in the title field, rather than as a
keyword alone, will very likely produce more relevant
responses, EXAMPLE: title:"web search tutorial"
More on Field Searching
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Field searching allows you to specify exactly
where you want the search engine to look in the
Web document.
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Major fields of a webpage include:
 Title
 Link
 Host (or Site)
 URL
 Domain
HOST (OR SITE) SEARCHING
If you are seeking information that resides on a specific
computer or server, you can narrow your search with a
"host" or "site" query, EXAMPLE: host:www.sc.edu
returns pages hosted at the University of South Carolina.
URL SEARCHING
If you are seeking a specific file, and that file's name is part
of the host site's URL, you may find it more quickly by
choosing a URL search, EXAMPLE: url:bck2skol
returns sites in which the filename, bck2skol, incorporated
into the URL.
DOMAIN SEARCHING
edu -- educational site
com -- commercial business site
gov -- U.S. governmental/non-military site
mil -- U.S. military sites and agencies
net -- networks, internet service providers,
organizations
org -- U.S. non-profit organizations and others

EXAMPLE: domain:edu AND "On the Origin of
Species" AND Darwin AND paleontology
If you are seeking information from a particular
international domain, you may choose to search the
domain geographically using the two-letter country
code.
EXAMPLE: domain:UK AND "Edward de Vere
17th Earl of Oxford"
which limits your search to sites in the United
Kingdom dealing with the Shakespearean authorship
question.
Other searchable fields include anchor, applet, object,
text, language, sound, pictures, and date.
IMAGE SEARCHING
If you want to find a particular image on the web,
you may choose an IMAGE search. You will need
to specify the image by name, which works well if
the name is part of the image file name. If not, you
may miss that particular image altogether,
EXAMPLE: IMAGE:bones.gif
Tips for Boolean Searching
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Boolean Operators
OR, |
solar OR system, solar|system
AND, &
space AND station, space & station
NOT, !, ~
Washington NOT George
AND NOT,
ANDNOT
pepsi AND NOT coke
Tips for Boolean Searching, cont’d
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Always enclose OR statements in parentheses
EXAMPLE: Yosemite (campgrounds OR
reservations)
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Always use CAPS when typing Boolean
operators in your search statements.
EXAMPLE: "immune system" AND
homeopathic (medicine OR remedy)
NEAR
Proximity Operators
The NEAR operator allows you to search for terms
situated within a specified distance of each other in
any order, EXAMPLE: phylogeny NEAR
ontogeny
ADJ (adjacent to)
Even fewer search engines accept ADJ (adjacent
to). ADJ works as a phrase except that the two
terms, which must appear adjacent to each other
in the webpage, can appear in any order,
EXAMPLE: Ernest ADJ Hemingway
Proximity Operators, cont’d
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SAME and FBY
SAME (keywords found in the same field) and
FBY (followed by), are used as advanced
searching techniques in library and other
specialized databases that contain bibliographic
citations or references to journal articles, but are
not yet employed by search engines.
More Advice On Searching
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Know the default (basic) settings your search engine
uses (OR or AND). This will have an effect on how
you configure your search statement because, if you
don't use any signs (+, - " "), the engine will default
to its own settings.
Do not put a space between a + or - sign and the
keyword.
Do NOT put quotation marks around a single word.
When entering a string of several words, put your
most important keywords first
Combine phrases with keywords, using the double
quotes and the plus (+) and/or minus (-) signs.
EXAMPLE:+cowboys +"wild west" -football dallas
More Advice On Searching, cont’d
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When searching for a phrase alone, the +sign is not
necessary.
When searching within a document for the location
of your keyword(s), use the "find" command on that
page.
Know whether or not the search engine you are
using maintains a STOP WORD list. These words
are often ignored when keyed as search terms, but “”
or a + in front may make them searchable.
Examples: a, about, an, and, are, as, at, be, by, from,
how, i, in, is, it, of, on, or, that, the, this, to, we,
what, when, where, which, with, etc.
Bibliography
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Barker, Joe. "Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial
" University of California, Berkeley. 09 Sep. 2003
<http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/
ThingsToKnow.html>
Chamberlain, Ellen. “Bare Bones 101: A Basic Tutorial On
Searching the Web” University of South Carolina, Beaufort.
09 Sep. 2003
<http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/bones.html>
Dodge, Bernie. “Seven Tips Toward Better Searching” 09
Sep. 2003
<http://webquest.sdsu.edu/searching/sevensteps2001.html>
“Internet Search” Memorial University of Newfoundland.
09 Sept 2003
<http://www.library.mun.ca/internet/search/index.php>
Bibliography
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“Internet Search Tools” Los Angeles County Office of
Education. 09 Sept. 2003
<http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/internet/search.ht
ml>
Levine, Allen. “How To Be a WebHound” Maricopa
Center for Learning and Instruction. 09 Sep. 2003
<http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/webhound/index.htm
l>
Smith, Richard J. “Web Search Cheat Sheet” TriPath
Network and Access Expansion Project. 09 Sept 2003
<http://www.colosys.net/search/>
Disclaimer: the content on this page has been taken
directly from the above sources