Searching The Internet Open Text Searching vs Subject

Searching The Internet

Open Text Searching vs. Subject Tree Search Open Text Search Engine scans the Web looking for a word or group of words you have entered as your search string e. g. intelligent agents

Subject Tree Search A Subject Tree is a catalog of a great number of pages on the web, neatly organized by category, sub-subcategory, etc. (called “hierarchical organization”) Yahoo is one of the most comprehensive subject tree indices; Also, Snap, www. snap. com) and Looksmart (www. looksmart. com) are other ( well-known subject tree sites.

Subject Tree Search Suppose you want to search for information on “mutual funds” Finance -> Investing -> Mutual Funds People – not robots programs – compile subject trees, and these people cut out links that are useless. Subject trees can help orient search by showing sites that fall into same category.

Open Text Search You enter a keyword for the search engine to use in scouring the Web. The search engine returns a listing of all the Web pages that match your keyword, ranked in order of relevance. Generally, pages on which the keyword appears the greatest number of times receive a higher relevance rating. (some sights PAY their way into “relevance”)

Search and GOOGLE E. g. Google Displays its search results in two ways. First, it lists the relevant categories (from the subject tree index portion of the site). Then it provides a listing of sites that contain the keyword, with the most relevant site at the top of the listing. Google uses indentation to show which pages are connected to a particular web site.

Advanced Search Techniques When you want the search words to appear right next to each other with no words in between, type your keywords in quotes. electronic commerce forecast -Find all sites that have the words “electronic”, “commerce”, and “forecast” (not necessarily in that order “electronic commerce forecast” Finds all sites that have the words “electronic”, and “commerce” and “forecast” right next to each other, in that order

+ “electronic commerce forecast” +china Find all sites that have the words “electronic commerce forecast” next to each other. These pages must also contain the word “china” Boolean Searches Possible (And, Or, Not) e. g. +Automobile +Premium Size. SUV

Search / Cont. When in doubt, use Lowercase keywords match both lower and uppercase, but uppercase matches uppercase only.

Search / Cont. A star (*) for the Wildcard Suppose you want to include “Europe” and “European”, use + “electronic commerce forecast” + “europe* europe electronic commerce forecast european electronic commerce forecast

Go Beyond with Metasearch Each search engine uses its own technique or strategy to conduct a search. That is why entering the same keyword on two search engines will usually produce different results. For a more comprehensive search try a METASEARCH SITE:

Examples of Meta Search Sites: Dogpile http: //www. dogpile. com {18 search engines} Metacrawler http: //www. metacrawler. com {12 search engines} Husky Search http: //www. huskysearch. cs. washington. edu Ixquick http: //www. ixquick. com {14 search engines} Northern Light http: //www. northernlight. com Nominal fee for many of the documents. Meta. Eureka http: //www. metaeureka. com Savvy Search http: //www. savvysearch. com/search

Meta Tags A META tag is an HTML tag that contains information about a Web page. The tag does not change how a web page is displayed, but can contain a description of the page, keywords, and the page’s title. Search engines often use this information when ranking a site. Some search engines rank your site by sending out a program, called a spider to inspect the site. The spider reads the META tages, determines the relevance of the Web page’s information and keywords, And then ranks the site according to the visits’ findings.

Meta Tags / Cont. Not uncommon to review competitors’ web sites and see what META tags they are using. ASK: “If I wanted to search for products or services that my company offers, what keywords would I type when using a search engine? ” Good idea for your site to appear in top 10 listings (results) because many people will not look further.

Search Engine Registration Register by submitting keywords and a description of your business Search engine will add your information to its database of Web sites. When search engine is used, your site may appear in the list of results. Many search engines constantly scour the Web, visiting and ranking Web pages.

Search Engine Registration/Cont. Your page may even appear on a list if it is not registered, if it is linked to another site which has been found. Some companies will register your web site with a major search engine for a fee. Details: www. searchenginewatch. com/ Webmasters/index. html