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CONTENTS:
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Review of Web Searching and Navigation
Finding Search Tools
[HINT:] The most popular navigation resources have sections with hyperlinks to
other prominent resources.
[http://www.yahoo.com]
was the first comprehensive directory (that is, organized and categorized
listing) for the web.
- Yahoo is one of the most popular search tools on the Web.
- Yahoo is very simple to use.
- Special features of Yahoo include:
- Yahooligans
[http://www.yahooligans.com> is a noted guide to Web sites for kids.
- The directory path (Computers and Internet: Internet: World Wide Web:
Searching the Web) provide a lengthy list of Web and Internet search resources.
- To navigate through Yahoo's hierarchical directory, scroll through the
initial screen (page) and select a topic.
- This will take you to a listing of subcategories under that topic.
- At the most subcategory, there will be a list of Web site. Selecting
a website moves you to that Site.
- To return to the Yahoo home page, click on the word "Yahoo" at the
top of the screen.
- To do a simple keyword search of the Yahoo database, enter a keyword
in the keyword form. Then click on "Search."
- To do a more detailed search of the Yahoo database, click on "options"
to the right of the "Search" button.
- This will take you to a page which will permit you to control your
search.
- This page will permit you do a form of Boolean search (to find
documents containing both or either one of two keywords).
- This page will permit you to limit the number of matches Yahoo
returns at a time. (The default setting is 20 matches.)
[http://lycos.com] is a powerful search engine with a subject directory
of sites organized into sixteen major categories.
- Lycos conducts full-text search.
- Lycos will conduct searches specifically for graphics and sounds.
- To do a keyword(s) search in Lycos, enter a word or a phrase in the
keyword form and click on the "Go get it" button.
- To customize your search, click on RCustom searchS to the right of the
search button.
- The custom search allows you to turn your keyword phase into a Boolean
search string (for example, if you entered "modern British writers" you can
select to find only documents with all three terms "modern and British and
writers" or any of the three terms "modern or British or writers."
- The custom search allows you search using the exact term entered or
for close matches of the term (for example, if you entered "painting" a loose
search would also retrieve "paintings").
- Lycos includes (in parentheses at the end of each document title) the
success rate and number of terms found in each article. [A 100% success rate
indicates that this was the closed match to the search criteria.]
- Lycos allows you to display search results with "Standard" or
"Detailed" information on the Sites found. [This is the last option on the
Custom Search page.]
- Lycos allows you (through a "button bar") to repeat a search in "All
Sites" or narrowed to "Related Sites," "Sounds," or "Pictures."
- Details of the features offered by
Lycos are listed at [http://www.lycos.com/sitemap.html]
[http://infoseek.com] is a powerful and comprehensive search engine
with on of the most extensive databases of Web pages on the Internet. InfoSeek
was originally a subscriber-only service. Currently, Infoseek is support by
advertising and is, for now, available to users free of charge.
- To do a keyword(s) search in InfoSeek, enter a word or a phrase in the
keyword form and click on the "Seek" button.
- Below the keyword form box is a "drop down list" [click and hold on
the down arrow, then move the mouse until the desired selection is highlighted]
which permits you to limit your search by the type of document, for example,
"the Web," "News Wires," "E-mail Addresses," "Company Profiles"
- InfoSeek measure the frequency of the keywords (in your search query)
in the document in its database.
- The documents found during the search are sorted by (listed in the
order of) their relevance (or frequency of keyword occurrence).
- InfoSeek displays the results in groups of ten, beginning with the
most relevant document.
- InfoSeek has a directory of 'Topics' which can be browsed (similarly
to Yahoo and Lycos).
- InfoSeek allows you to search by exact phrase by enclosing the search
phrase in quotation marks. For example, chaos theory will look for document
which contain either the term "chaos" or the term "theory" while "chaos theory"
will look for documents which contains the exact phrase "chaos theory."
- InfoSeek will allow you to indicate if a word must be contained in a
document by placing a +-sign in front of the word. For example, +radio
television broadcasts will search for documents that must contain the term
"radio" and may also contain the either or both of the terms "television" or
"broadcasts."
[http://altavista.digital.com] is one of the newest search services
on the Web.
To do a keyword(s) search in AltaVista, enter a word or a phrase in
the keyword form and click on the "Submit" button.
AltaVista allows you to refine your search using both quotations marks
and the plus sign (as in InfoSeek). You can also combine the two in one search,
for example: +annotation +"Alice in Wonderland" will look for a document that
must contain both the work "annotation" and the exact phrase "Alice in
Wonderland."
AltaVista has two "drop down" selection boxes above the keyword form
box: One allows you to limit the type of documents searched (e.g. "the Web,"
"Usenet"); the other allows you to type of results-display, for example, a
compact (single-line) listing to a detailed form.
AltaVista allows you to limit the part of the Web page that is
searched, for example, title:dogs will search for the word "dogs" in Web page
titles only. Other parts of a Web page in which you can search are the url, the
host, or a page link.
AltaVista has an Advanced Query for more sophisticated (boolean)
searching.
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