Search Engines What is a Search Engine v

Search Engines

What is a Search Engine? v Software programs that search the Internet for a topic, catalogs the results, and displays the sites found. v Also called Spiders or Web crawlers v Save time in researching by displaying descriptions to be read before visiting sites found.

Types of Engines v Subject-and-Keyword – build their own catalogs by gathering and organizing it from other sites prior to being asked for a specific search string.

Types of Engines v Multi-threaded engines – are slower search engines because they don’t maintain their own catalog. They search specific strings only when asked.

Catalogs v Hierarchical – Goes faster because a person is able to narrow their search by categories prior to asking a search engine to find a specific search string. v Subject – looks for the word but may bring up other topics

Text String v. Words or phrases used to narrow a search area

Searches v Simple Search – uses only one or two keywords (broadest kind) v Complex Search – uses Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT, etc. ) and grouping operators (double quotes, parentheses) (contains several words and also operators to modify the text string)

Error Messages v Site may be busy or temporarily down v Either server or site may no longer exist v Server unavailable at this time v Server not found v Unable to find a file

What to Do v Check for typographical mistakes v Check for proper capitalization of proper nouns v Check the spelling of keywords v Try spelling variations of keywords v Try a different search site