An Introduction to Searching the Web

Draft of January 2, 2006.  Please send corrections and suggestions to Tom Peters (tpeters@tapinformation.com).  Thanks. 


Brief Introduction to this online meeting software

Text chatting

Simply move your cursor into the text chat input box in the left-center area of the screen by either clicking in that area or alt-T, then type in your message and press the Enter key on your keyboard

VoIP

If you have a microphone connected to your PC, press and hold the Control key on your keyboard to speak.  Remember to release the Control key when you have finished. 

Synchronized Browsing

Recording and archiving a session

Browser Software

As reported by ZDnet in April 2005

Internet Explorer from Microsoft (83 percent of worldwide market)

Firefox (10 percent)

Mozilla (4 percent)

Opera (1 percent)

Searching the Web

There are two basic ways to search for information on the Web.  Either you can use an index (also called a search engine), or you can search or browse through a directory or classified arrangement.  Most indexes and search engines are automatically generated by special software programs, with little human intervention.  Most directories or classified arrangements tend to involve more human intervention and judgment and are more selective in the websites they include. 

Searching an Index

Google (www.google.com) 

msn Search (http://search.msn.com/)

Yahoo! Search (http://www.yahoo.com/)

Ask Jeeves (http://www.ask.com/)

Teoma (http://www.teoma.com/)  

IceRocket (http://www.icerocket.com/)

Provides homepage thumbnails 

Vivisimo (http://vivisimo.com/)

Results are “clustered” into folders

Exalead (http://beta.exalead.com/search)

Multi-Index Mega Search Engines

Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com/)

Claims to return the “best results” from the leading search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, LookSmart. 

Clusty (http://clusty.com/)

Searching or Browsing through a Directory or Classified Arrangement

Directories tend to be selective, with annotated entries.  Directories can be either browsed or searched. 

Yahoo Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com/)

Librarians’ Index to the Internet (http://lii.org/)

Searching for People

Yahoo’s People Search (http://people.yahoo.com/)

Zoominfo (http://www.zoominfo.com/) 

Google the person (www.google.com) 

If all you have is a phone number, enter the 10 digits without any hyphenation. 

Searching for Things to Buy

Should you trust sending your credit card information over the Internet? 

MySimon (http://www.mysimon.com/)

DealTime (http://www.dealtime.com/)

Froogle (http://froogle.google.com/)

Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/)

eBay (http://www.ebay.com/)

Searching for News

Google News (http://news.google.com/)

Newspapers (e.g., www.nytimes.com)

Daily digests:  email messages sent by news organizations

Searching the Blogosphere

Technorati (http://www.technorati.com/)

Google Blog Search (http://google.com/blogsearch) 

Searching Email Discussion Groups

Google Groups (http://groups-beta.google.com/)

YahooGroups (http://groups.yahoo.com/)

Finding Stuff on the Hidden Web

Ask your local library or organizations with which you are affiliated if they have access to any proprietary databases or password-protected websites. 

Proprietary Databases

Password-Protected Websites

Evaluating the Truth and Value of a Webpage

Who created the page, an individual or an organization?

How forthcoming are they about their mission, level of expertise, etc.?

How current is the page?

Does the page contain links, citations, and documentation?

Be wary of parodies and attempts to be humorous

Saving Stuff You Find on the Internet

Saving Webpages on Your Hard Drive

Saving PDF Documents

Prudence, Security, and Privacy

Cookies

Essential Downloads

In addition to having a good, current browser program, it also is helpful when using the Web to have Adobe Reader, which enables rich interaction with PDF files, and media player software, such as Windows Media Player.  This and other similar software can be downloaded off the Internet free of charge.  Please note:  many newer computers come with these essential software program preloaded. 

Adobe Reader (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html)

Windows Media Player http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp

Learn More About Searching the Internet

University of California at Berkeley Library Guide http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

This web resource was consulted extensively during the creation of this outline. 

Phil Bradley’s Major Search Engines: A Comparison (http://www.philb.com/compare.htm)

Last updated in October 2005. 

Search Engine Showdown (http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/)

Search Engine Journal (http://www.searchenginejournal.com/)