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/