• Search Engines• Meta Engines• People Directories• Subject Directories• Domains explained• URLs explained• Hypertext Language

Contents

Search Engines

When will I use them?

• Use when looking for information about a specific topic.

E.g. Bastille day

Search Engines

What are they? How do they work?

• Search engines allow keyword searches on the World Wide Web.

• Information is gathered by programs called robots or spiders.

AllTheWebhttp://www.alltheweb.com/

Googlehttp://www.google.com/

Hotbothttp://www.hotbot.com/

Useful Search Engines

Meta Engines

How do they work?• Meta engines are

programs which query multiple web sources (search engines, web directories and/or other specialized databases). They do not have their own databases.

• They send queries simultaneously to their specified web sources (varies with each meta engine). Many of them integrate the search results and rank according tovarious criteria.

What are they?

Meta Engines

When will I use them?

• Use these engines when you want the highest recall of documents on a specific subject.

Beaucouphttp://beaucoup.com/

Ixquick Metasearchhttp://www.ixquick.com/

Profusionhttp://www.profusion.com/

Useful Meta Engines

People Directories

What are they? How are they organized?• People directories are

often referred to as ‘whitepages’ and include directories of email and snail mail addresses and telephone numbers.

• The information is gathered by robots or by submissions by individuals.

People Directories

When will I use them?

• Use when looking for email and snail mail addresses and telephone numbers.

WhoWherehttp://www.whowhere.com/

IAF (Internet Address Finder)http://www.iaf.net/

Whitepageshttp://wp.superpages.com/

Useful People Directories

Subject Directories

What are they? How are they organized?

• An index or catalog of Web sites.

• They are organized by humans.

Subject Directories

When will I use them?

• Use when looking for general information about a topic.

E.g. education, medicine

• Use when looking for a list of sites which have been selected by human experts.

LookSmarthttp://www.looksmart.com/

Lycoshttp://www.lycos.com/

Yahoohttp://www.yahoo.com/

Useful Subject Directories

Domains Explained

What are they?• A domain name is a meaningful and easy-

to-remember “handle” for an Internet address.

• The domain name system (DNS) is the way that internet domain names are located and translated into computer addresses.

Domains Explained

How do they help?• The DNS includes:

• Name of country e.g. ca for Canada e.g. fr for France E.g. au for Australia

• Type of organization e.g. com for commercial e.g. edu for educational e.g. gov for government

• Name of organization e.g. brown for Brown University

URLs Explained

• URLs areWorld Wide Web addressesU = UniformR = ResourceL = Locator

What are they?

URLs Explained

An example

• The URL for Brown University is:

http://www.brown.edu

• Typically a WWW address includes:

• http:// - hypertext transfer protocol• www - World Wide Web• brown - name of the organization• edu - type of organization

Web Browsers

What are they?• The web browser is a software program

installed on your PC that lets you look at (or “browse”) websites.

• Popular browsers include:– Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Mosaic.

Hypertext links

What are they?• The Web is based on a system called

hypertext markup language (HTML).

• Hyperlinks are used to link information within documents and between documents on the World Wide Web.

Hypertext links

Recognizing hyperlinks• Hyperlinks appear as:

Icons Images Text

• Text links are commonly a different color and are usually underlined.

Works Cited

Henninger, M. Don’t Just Surf: Effective Research Strategies for the Net. Sydney: U of New South Wales Press Ltd, 1999.

Tyner, R. “Internet Search Tools & Techniques.” 19 June 2001 M.L.S. Okanagan U College. 4 Oct. 2001 <http://www.sci.ouc. bc.ca/libr/connect96/search.htm>.

Barlow, L. “How Search Engines Work.” The Spider’s Apprentice: A Helpful Guide to Search Engines. 22 Sept. 2001. Monash Information Services. 4 Oct. 2001 <http://www.monash.com/ spidap4.html/>.

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