Searching+the+Internet

media type="file" key="Google Note.mp3" Google, the largest search engine on the Internet, was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They wanted a name that would express an enormous size. So they chose the term for the integer 10 to the power of one hundred-googol. But the founders misspelled it as google, and the name was registered before anyone checked!

Here's a vid by google about what a search is... media type="youtube" key="BNHR6IQJGZs" height="385" width="640"

Search Engines-Get Yours Running

A search engine is a computer program that searches the Web electronically, looking for information. Search engines help users find web pages by using web crawlers, spiders, or indexing robots. They download and examine web pages and draw out information to assist in describing those pages. This process can be as simple as finding the words that appear in the title or the first few lines of text. It can be as sophisticated as analyzing the content to find keywords or phrases. The program then saves this cataloguing information in a database, along with the URL of the site from which the information came. When you key a word or phrase in the search engine, it is this database, not the entire Web, that is examined. 1. What is an Internet search engine, and how does it work? 

Once the search engine finds database records that contain your keywords, it displays a list of the Web documents from which you can choose. You may get different results if you use a number of search engines to search for the same information. Search engines catalogue the information they find in different ways:

●Some search engines list hits based on which sites are visited most often.

●Some search engines list hits based on reviews and recommendations by others.

●Some search engines list hits based on how many times your keywords appear on a web page, or where they appear (e.g., in the title).

Because of this, the search engine you decide to use really makes a difference in what hits you get!

How search engines rank their hits

Type of Single Search: Human-Powered Directory Description: Human-powered directories depend on humans for their Listings. Editors review sites and rank them. Your search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted.

Type of Single Search: Paid Inclusion Description: Paid inclusion is a service where website owners can pay to be guaranteed that their pages will be included in the search engine's index.

Type of Single Search: Frequency of Hits Description: Some search engines rank web pages that are frequently visited by users.

Type of Single Search: Keywords Description: All of the major search engines look for keywords in the body text of a web page. Some will count the number of times your search term comes up; others will look to see where on the page it appears (e.g., if the keyword appears in the title, it will be ranked higher in your search results).

Type of Single Search: Metatags Description: Metatags are instructions that are inserted in the HTML code of a web page. They can contain all sorts of information (you will learn more about metatags in Chapter 10). Search engines will sometimes look for metatags that provide keywords or information about a site to help in the search ranking.

Most search engines use some combination of a few of the approaches described above. For example, Google looks at keywords, metatags, and frequency of hits.

It can be time consuming if you find you have to use several search engines before you find what you want. If you are in a hurry and want to access more than one search engine at a time, you can try a meta-search engine.

●meta-search engines-Meta-search engines take your query and submit it to numerous search engines at the same time. The results are presented altogether on one screen for you to make your choice. The results indicate the search engine that found that particular information. Meta-search engines include Dogpile, search.com, and Clusty (which organizes results into clusters).

2. Explain the difference between a single-search engine and a meta-search engine. Provide an example for each. 

LIMITATIONS OF SEARCH ENGINES

Here are some common complaints heard when people look for information on the Internet:

●There is too much irrelevant information. When an indexing robot explores the Web searching for documents, it categorizes the information based on what web-page authors write-not on what you are actually looking for. As a result, when you do a search, the search engine may list sites that are irrelevant to your quest and leave out others that contain important information. You may have to change the words you use in your search to find what you need. For example, a search for dog ears might result in sites having to do with paper. Changing the search to canine ears would limit the results to actual dogs' ears.

●Some search engines have a built-in bias. This is because they will add a site to their database if it contains numerous instances of a frequently sought-after word (e.g., free, coupon, and so on). Web developers know that some search engines work this way, so they hide popular words within their site so that their site will appear more frequently as a hit in searches. This can be done by adding the word in the HTML code (you will learn more about this in Chapter 10).

●There is too much commercial information. Web crawlers cannot make judgments about the content of an HTML page. They do not know the difference between a newspaper article, a play by Shakespeare, and an advertisement for a new product. You have to make those judgment calls.

●Not all web pages are created equally. There are no accepted standards for the creation of a web page. Some organizations have proposed standards, but they are not necessarily used. As a result, some of the information you need to judge the validity of a site (author, date of publication, subject, and length of the text) may not be available.

3. What does bias mean in terms of Internet searching? How can sites improve their rankings when people perform searches?

4. How would standards for creating web pages help Internet searchers? 

How to Use a Search Engine