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Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

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Page 1: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first
Page 2: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Search Tools

Learn about:

Parts of a Search Tool.

How Search Tool databases are created.

The differences between Search Tools.

“Search Tools” is the first in a series of Web Library modules about using the Internet.

Page 3: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Tools and Topics

The content of this module will contain a model Internet search that parallels information in the video. As we work through these slides we will explore different Search Tools in an effort to find one that meets our needs.

Before we start our search we will choose a topic.

Page 4: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Tools and Topics

The topic we will choose to research in these modules is “pollution”.

You may choose your own topic if you prefer. Pause the RealPlayer as you do your research

or

follow along as we do ours.

More information to support this video can be found Ask Scott.

Page 5: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Search Tools

There are many web sites that list Search Tools.

Check the site Search Tools shown above.

Page 6: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Choose a Search Tool

We will begin our search at www.google.com. We type “pollution” in the type-in box and then click on the Google Search button or hit Enter.

Page 7: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

World Wide Web.

The Spider searches the WWW and adds sites to the Database.

The Database is kept filled and updated by the Spider.

The Interface views the selected Database items.

Parts of the Internet Search Tool

Page 8: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Spider Search Results

Google.com returns over 3 million results. Check www. google.com to find out how this tool searches the web.NOTE: We will use the term Spider throughout the slides in this module. Even though Spider and Robot are used interchangeably, it is confusing to mix terms when teaching new users. Consistency is important!

Page 9: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

How Spiders Search

Understanding how Spiders do their searches helps the learner/researcher understand the results of the search.

Google Spiders search the Internet on their own. This provides a larger database than is created by Spiders that search only submitted pages.

Page 10: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Comparing Search Tools

A “pollution” search on Excite yields less results than that of Google.

A closer look at the two search lists will reveal that the suggested Web sites are also different.

This is true because Google and Excite use different spiders to do their data collections.

Page 11: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Dead End Searches

Sometimes pages become either temporarily or permanently inactive.

Internet Explorer inactive page.

Netscape inactive page.

Page 12: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Do Your Homework

As we start our search for “pollution” we will consider several different Search Tools.

We will want to answer the following questions:

1. Which kind of Search Tool should we use?2. How useful are the first couple of listings?3. How many dead links do we find?4. Does the search style match our

preferences?5. Does the search page design appeal to us?

Page 13: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

General Word Searches

“Pollution” is a general word. As we found out in the previous results from Google and Excite, a general search can provide us with many choices.

At this time we want to keep our search of “pollution” sites general. We will continue to look at different Search Tools to see if we can find one that will help us narrow our search.

Page 14: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Directory Format

Main Category (Pollution)

Subcategory(Water Pollution)

Sub-subcategory (Lakes, Rivers, Drinking Water, Water Filters, etc.)

Subcategory (Air Pollution)

Sub-subcategory (Automobile Exhaust, Power Plants, etc.)

Page 15: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Type-in Box

Subcategories

A Directory

Page 16: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

How Search Tools Work

The World Wide Web

Database

Search Tool

Database

Search Tool

Database

Search Tool

Page 17: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

yahoo.com

Page 18: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

about.com

Page 19: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

looksmart.com

Page 20: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

askjeeves.com

Page 21: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Examples of Directories

Page 22: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Directory Results

Page 23: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Search for pollution Search

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Subcategories

C A T E G O R Y

Page 24: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Narrowing the Search

The human developed directories we tried did not return as many results as our search of Spider generated data from Google and Excite.

Besides the general directories we cited, there are also special focus directories such as those that collect data on web sites about movies or medicine.

Before we narrow our search we will explore some of the other types of Search Tools available.

Page 25: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

AltaVista Uses a Spider Search

Page 26: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

AltaVista Search

AltaVista searches the Web for words. Notice here that the results of our search for “pollution” give us a word count of 2.7 million.

Page 27: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Lycos Searches Selected Words

Page 28: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

1,783,169 WEB SITES

Many Results

Page 29: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Spider Search Tools

Disadvantage: These tools find many more sites than can be explored. It would probably be best to start our search with a directory.

Advantage: These tools can goout and search for deadlinks and new links on aregular basis. Thismeans constantlyupdated link lists.

Page 30: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Northern Light

Page 31: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Why Use Spiders?

These tools:

Have a much wider selection.

Give better results for a specific question.

Help find topics not listed in directories.

Our topic is very general at this point. Do we need the advantages of a Spider tool at this point in our search? Should we look for a tool that will better focus our search?

Page 32: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Meta-search Tools

Page 33: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

metacrawler.com

Page 34: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

mamma.com

Page 35: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Meta-search Results

DOGPILE is another meta-search tool. Notice when “pollution” was entered, dogpile.com found its own preferred results in various other search tools.

Page 36: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

Comparing Results

Human created search tools or directories provide us with a fewer results and subcategory ideas.

Spider created search tools provide us with many results and a fairly up-to-date list.

Meta-search tools find and organize a list of results from many different search tools.

Page 37: Search Tools Learn about: Parts of a Search Tool. How Search Tool databases are created. The differences between Search Tools. “Search Tools” is the first

What’s Next?

After comparing the different Search Tools we will decide to use a directory for our initial general topic search.

The second NetSearch module is entitled Directories. We will continueour search and choose a specific type of pollutionin the next module.