How Do I Do Research
On The Internet?
Living Online Lesson 4
Mrs. Elzey
Lesson Objectives
List some reasons for searching the Internet.
Describe different search approaches.
Define a search engine.
Explain how search engines work.
Describe how search engines search.
Identify some of the more popular search
engines.
 List some of the specialty search engines.
 Describe the subject directory search approach.
 Describe some search tips and tricks.






The Key to a Successful Search
Understand the tools available
 Some are more suitable for some
purposes than others
 Two basic tools to find info online

– Search engines – automated programs
– Subject directories – assembled by people
Search Engines
A software program
 Hundreds of different ones each one works a
little differently
 Most have common search features:

– Keyword searchers
– Concept-based searching
 The search engine returns hits that relate to the keyword(s).
– Stemming or “related” sites
 The search engine finds variations of the word.
Search Engine’s 3 main parts
Main component: software program – searches
through millions of records in a database
 2nd part: spider or crawler – a robot program
that searches the Internet for keywords and
returns the pages it finds to the search engine
 3rd part: index – when the spider finds a page it
submits it to the index. Once indexed it becomes
available to that search engine.

Keyword searches


The most common method used, but not the most
effective
Keywords are placed in meta tags in the web page
document
– <meta name = “keywords” content =“Nintendo 64, Mario,
James Bond, Donkey Kong”>




Tags may be used to create an index
If no tag – the keyword is looked for in a database on a
server
Each time the word is found it returns a hit on a Web
site
Usually produces 1000s of hits
– The page may have a relevance rating percentage
– As you move down the page the relevant number becomes less.
Tools and Techniques for Searching

Phrase
– Entered using double quotation marks
– Separate multiple phrases or proper names with a
comma

Math Symbols– filters in or out unwanted sites
– (+) inclusion operator: before words that must
appear
– (-) exclusion operator: before words that should
not appear
Let’s Practice
Go to www.google.com
 Enter the keywords

cookie recipe
How
 Now
 How
 Now
 How

many hits did you get?
enter “cookie recipe”
many hits did you get?
enter +cookie +recipe
many hits did you get?
Let’s narrow our search





Enter the words
+cookie +recipe +chocolate
How many hits did you get?
Now enter
+cookie +recipe +chocolate –coconut
Add the word sugarless
+cookie +recipe +chocolate –coconut
+sugarless
The hits should continue to reduce
Some Popular Search Engines

Google
– www.google.com

HotBot
– www.hotbot.com

AlltheWeb
– www.alltheweb.com
Check out this website for more help
working with particular search engines.
http://www.infopeople.org/search/guide.html
Specialty Search Engines
Specialty Search Engines
Also known as “Category-oriented” search
tools
 Focuses on a particular topic
 Use when you are looking for information
in a particular format.

Specialty Search Engines

Looking for a dictionary?
– www.thefreedictionary.com

Looking for an online encyclopedia?
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Want to do some online shopping?
– www.bizrate.com
– www.froogle.com

Looking for a place to visit?
– www.expedia.com
– www.orbitz.com
Some Specialty Search Engines

Maps
– www.mapquest.com

People
– www.peoplesite.com
– www.yellow.com

Multimedia
– www.multimedia-search.com
– www.audiofind.com
Subject Directory Searching






Assembled by people
Web sites are checked to make sure they meet a
particular set of standards
URL is added to the database
Organized by subject categories
Internet resources are arranged by subject
Displayed in a series of menus
– Goes from general to specific
Subject Directories
Provide a more guided approach than
entering keywords into a search engine.
 You are not searching the entire Web.
 The Web sites have been handpicked and
evaluated.
 They produce better quality hits on
searches for common items.

Some Popular Subject Directories

Librarian’s index
– www.lii.org

Yahoo
– www.yahoo.com

Galaxy
– www.galaxy.com
Other Search Tools

Boolean Logical Operators
– AND
– OR
– NOT

Wildcard
– (*) symbol used when not sure of the spelling of a
word

Title – only used by some search engines
– Place title between double quotations

Related
– Seen with pages that have ‘similar pages’ or ‘related
pages’ or ‘more pages like this’, etc.
Boolean

AND
– The search may look like this:

OR
 cookies AND recipes AND chocolate
– One term or the other or both will return results
– The search may look like this:

NOT
 cookies OR cake AND recipes
– Similar to the exclusion operator (-)
– Excludes results with this term
– The search may look like this:
 cookies OR cake AND recipes NOT chocolate


You may find logical searches under an additional search tab such
as “Advanced Search”
Not all search engines support Boolean logic.
Wildcard Searching
Used when you don’t know the spelling of a
word
 Also used when you want to search plurals or
variations of a word.
 Example:

– Search for baseball cards and Nolan Ryan but not
sure how to spell the name.
– The search may look like this:
 “baseball cards”, N*, “Ryan”
 “baseball cards”, No*, Ry*

Some search engines do not support wildcard
searches
Title Searching
Looking for a Web page title.
 The search may look like this:

– “Internet Tutorial”

Not all search engines support title
searches.
Related searches





Preprogrammed queries or questions suggested
by the search engine
Leads to other Web pages containing similar
information
Can improve your odds of finding information.
Several search engines offer this feature
you may see terms such as:
– Similar pages
– Related pages
– More pages like this
Meta Search Engines
Also known as a multi-threaded search
engine
 Transmits your search simultaneously to
databases maintained by search engine
companies.

Meta-Search Engines

Web Crawler
– www.webcrawler.com

Dogpile
– www.dogpile.com