Effective Internet Searching - April 13, 2005

Changes since the last time we had an Internet searching workshop
      fewer and different search tools - takeovers and disappearances and arrivals
      language  -    blogging, google yourself, RSS, IM, podcast
      new features - personalization, local linfo, make the information come to you
      increased size 8 billion vs. 3 billion
      instinctive users - the  internet is a utility for information infrastructure            

Search engines - how they find sites and what they do with them after they find them
     Operation 
               spider technology vs. human organization
               search engines vs. directories --- pros and cons
                        directories strength broad search, yields quality results
                        search engines strengths larger database, more precision
      Offerings 
              Google (1999) - Select more from the home page to see: catalog, directory, froogle, 
                      gmail, images, local, scholar (shoogle), search the desktop,
                      translation, cached screen shots (previous version of a site)
                      advanced search offers related links  &   link to a URL
              Examples -   MSN  , Yahoo  , AskJeeves
              What's new  - Blogging,  Google  whack (not officially part of Google, 
                     but a fun way to test phrase searching),  Amazon - search inside books ,
                     localizing/personalization  - my.yahoo , social networking Furl
        Resources to keep you current - Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Showdown       

You can only find what exists...online

Keys to effective Internet searches

  1. What do you need to find - directions, new book, literary criticism, historical document, image, FAQ, ancient book, recipe, magazine article, peer reviewed journal article?
  2. Consider which part of the Internet meets your needs
                Invisible/deep web  --- databases, proprietary (InfoTrac, ProQuest)
                Public web   -- search engines, directories Google, MSN  ,AskJeeves, Yahoo ,
                Vivisimo        
  3. Identify important concepts/key words and use those to create a unique, specific search phrase or search terms.
  4. Compare searching tools and execute your search using more than one tool
          algorithms, refresh frequency, database size, ranking, indexing depth
  5. Evaluate what you find - distinguish sponsored links, organization-folders
           relevance, accuracy, source, purpose, audience, currency, navigation

Reasons to use the Web
Destination driven - type URL or select from Favorites    
           Consumer resources  Communication: Email, chat, instant messenger
            MapQuest , Amazon, Expedia , Edmunds,  IMDB (Internet Movie Database), 
            L.L.Bean,  Food Network,  First Gov,  Ebay, Washington Post, Wikipedia

           Professional  resources     
           Dogwood - NVCC instructional  modules   
           Intuit-NVCC information  
           Kathy Schrock’s – guide for educators
           Library of Congress – American Memory project
           Merlot - National instructional modules
           National Archives - teaching using primary source documents
           Plagiarism , etc. - faculty resources

Topic driven      
1.  Read the on-screen directions, help information, &  be ready for change 
2.  Type in lower case  - "landscape design"      poinsettias care
3.  Use double quotation marks to group search phrases  --  
              "student success"  "community college"  
4.  Use specific, simple, unique search terms --  
          "american pie" lyrics analysis 
5. Require or eliminate terms or domains using +, - symbols;  
            "water gardens" +installation
6. Limit by domain or file type    "learning communities"  +.edu   
                 (often available as an advanced search option)  
7. Perform your search using more than one search tool
            a directory -   DMOZ (Open Directory Project), Librarians' Index
            a search engine -   Google, Gigablast, MSN  , AskJeeves, Yahoo
            a clustering tool, offering organized results - Teoma, Vivisimo 
            a MetaSearch engine - Dogpile or Hotbot (Google, AskJeeves)
8. Explore Advanced search options – limit by domain, page title, exact phrase 
9. Edit -- find in page - helps to find search terms within a page 
10. View -- page source allows you to see html coding, meta tags
      

Critique the search results
Too many - add more specific words, limit language/file type, years, occurrence, domain
Too few - add synonyms, expand search, reduce phrasing, remove limits
Nothing - check spelling, wrong place to search, too many concepts, nothing exists

Future
      intuitive searching - little bit now --- search tool knows what your search terms mean?
      federated search - one search across many databases
      Firefox - improved browser, fewer security flaws
      RSS - really simple syndication, brings the news to you
      new search tools - Microsoft 
     

Past
     Way Back Machine - Internet archive