Finding Information on the Internet

Irwansyah

Why Search the Web?

A simple answer is that the Web is too large and unorganized to find much useful information.

Alternative Methods for Finding Information• Typing in the web address of a known page (URL)• Search engines• Directories (or web catalogues)• Browsing

Web ‘addresses’ or URLs

The most efficient method of finding information on the internet is through typing the web address or URL directly into the web browser.

How do We Know the URL?

• A word of mouth recommendation• From advertisement or company

promotional literature• Simply making a good guess

How Web Search Engine Work

Search engines use special automatic tools known as spiders, crawler or robots to index web pages of registered sites.

What Search Engines Search

• Content• Tags

– Keyword– Description– Title– Heading– Links

What Search Engines Ignore• Frames• Scripts• Java Applets and Plug-Ins• Server-Generated Pages• Forms• Images• Deeply Linked Pages• Reorganization and Broken Links

Major Search Engines

• Google – http://www.google.com • Yahoo – http://search.yahoo.com • MSN – http://search.msn.com • AltaVista – http://www.altavista.com• Alltheweb – http://www.alltheweb.com

Alternative Search Engines

• Vivísimo – http://www.vivisimo.com • Dogpile – http://www.dogpile.com • Ask.com or AskJeeves.com –

http://www.ask.com • SurfWax – http://www.surfwax.com• Ixquick – http://www.ixquick.com

Mobile Search Engines

• http://mobile.google.com • http://mobile.yahoo.com/search • http://mobile.msn.com

Searching with Google

• Think “full text”war of 1812 economic causes

• Specify exact phrases“tom bates”

• Exclude or include a wordproliferation –nuclearobama +hussein

Searching with Google

• Web page titleintitle:hybrid

• Website or domainsite:whitehouse.gov

• File typefiletype:ppt site:edu “global warming”

Nine Very Cool Google Tricks

1. Definitionsdefine:wireless LAN

2. Calculator2+2

3. Phonebookphonebook: ansonia veterinary center NY

Nine Very Cool Google Tricks 4. Street Maps

9 Princeton St Boston MA 021285. Stock Quotes

stock quotes:MSFT 6. Patents, Tracking IDs, and Other Numeric Goodies

patent 5123123

Nine Very Cool Google Tricks 7. Weather

weather bloomington, indiana 8. Q&A

Q&A:population of south korea 9. Movies

movie: holy grail

Interpreting the Results

When Not to Use Google

• Google doesn't cluster results• Google isn’t good enough to find a person's email

address• Google isn't the best place to find what an abbreviation

stands for• Some topic-specific directories are simply more fine-

tuned than Google's regular full-text search• When working on an in-depth research project (like a

college thesis), Google doesn't help you catalog multiple search results, or let you take notes on interesting sites.

Web Catalogues or Directories

Massive online catalogs that are edited, sorted, and organized by humans

Major Web Directories

• http://directory.google.com • http://dir.yahoo.com • http://dmoz.org

Practical Tips for Managing Information

1. Using bookmarks2. Printing information3. Saving text for subsequent reading or

printing4. Saving an image or diagram

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