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Effective Internet Search Strategies
Kristin Trace
Technology ConsultantWestern School Board of Prince Edward Island
What is the best tool for the job?• DIRECTORY?• SEARCH ENGINE?
• Some services combine both as an option
Directories are
• Most often they come in a drill down format
• Topic (Games)– Sub-Topic (Video, Role Playing, Board...)
• Subject (Action, Simulation...)– etc
Directories are (con’t)
• HUMAN SORTED– The list of links has been
selected for inclusion on the site
• If the human is a specialist in their field these can be wonderful resources
• But they can also include sites which pay for their inclusion and/or ranking
Example Directory Sites
• http://dir.yahoo.com/• www.about.com• http://www.dmoz.org/ (Open
Directory Project)
• http://lii.org/ (Librarians Index to the Internet)
• www.google.com/dirhp
Search Engines
• Computer Sorted– Results are based on a
really complicated equation!
• Computer finds keywords– YOU need to be specific to
find what you really want
Search Engine Examples
• Alta Vista http://www.altavista.com/
• Google http://www.google.com
• AlltheWeb http://www.alltheweb.com/
• HotBot http://www.hotbot.com/
• Excite http://search.excite.com/
Boolean Strategies
• Pick your keywords college course computers
• PRACTICE:Go to www.google.com and type in the phrase college course computers
Boolean Strategies
• AND or +– will retrieve results with all
of the keywords
• College and Course and Computers
• PRACTICE:– In Google type in College
and Course and Computers
– Do your results change?– Probably not…google
defaults to and
Boolean Strategies
• OR• Used for synonyms
– If you can’t think of any synonyms you can use a thesaurus
– A quick and easy one is www.visualthesaurus.com
• PRACTICE:– Find synonyms for
PROGRAM– curriculum, syllabus, course
of study
Boolean Strategies
• PRACTICE– Go to google and type in
college program OR syllabus OR course of study computer
• Remember you do not have to type in AND since google defaults to inserting it between all words
– Different results?
Boolean Strategies
• AND NOT or –• Tells the search engine to
retrieve results eliminating keywords commonly found with another keyword
• PRACTICE– Go to google and type in
maple leaf• Notice how many references
there are to hockey?
Boolean Strategies
• AND NOT or – (con’t)– Now try maple leaf –leafs
• (there cannot be a space between – and leafs)
– Are your results different?
Boolean Strategies
• Phrases• Putting your keywords in
quotations marks will return results exactly as is – It removes the default AND
in Google
• PRACTICE:– Type in Kristin Trace– Now type in “Kristin
Trace”
• Are your results different?
Boolean Strategies in Combination• You can use all these tools
together• Example
– Kristin Trace –microsoft – regiment
• NOW LET’S GET PICKY• Up until now you’ve searched
for keywords from entire webpages
Boolean Strategies
• Title• Finds information from the
web page title• Practice
– Type in +title:”high school”
– now type in +title:”high school”+Prince+Edward+Island
Boolean Strategies• Domain• Limiting your search to a
domain allows you to specify a specific body– .com: a commerical business– .edu: an educational institution– .gov: a government organization
(US)– .org: a non-profit organization– .mil: a military site (US)– .net: a network site– .ca: a Canadian site
• http://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/country-codes.txt
Boolean Strategies
• Practice– +domain:ca +mad +cow– Try +mad +cow without
the domain command and note the difference
Boolean Strategies
• host• When you’re looking for a
specific page on a host site and you are not quite sure how to navigate to it and that site does not have a search engine
• PRACTICE– +host:www.edu.pe.ca
+kinkora
Boolean Strategies
• URL• When you want to look for
a specific work in a URL– PRACTICE
• url:dog +basset hound
Boolean Strategies
• Link• This finds pages linked to a
page you are interested in– Goes a long way to the
validity of the information
• PRACTICE:– Let’s see who is linked to the
WSB Site:– +link:www.edu.pe.ca/
wsb/