2. Topics
• Why Search the Web?
• Alternative Methods for Finding Information
• How Web Search Engine Work
• What Search Engines Search
• Major Search Engines
• Searching with Google
• Google Tricks
3. Why Search the Web?
A simple answer is that the Web is too
large and unorganized to find much
useful information.
4. Alternative Methods for Finding
Information
• Typing in the web address of a known page
(URL)
• Search engines
• Directories (or web catalogues)
• Browsing
5. Web ‘addresses’ or URLs
The most efficient method of finding
information on the internet is through
typing the web address or URL directly
into the web browser.
6. How do We Know the URL?
• A word of mouth recommendation
• From advertisement or company
promotional literature
• Simply making a good guess
7. How Web Search Engine Work
Search engines use special automatic tools
known as spiders, crawler or robots to
index web pages of registered sites.
8.
9. What Search Engines Search
• Content
• Tags
– Keyword
– Description
– Title
– Heading
– Links
10.
11. What Search Engines Ignore
• Frames
• Scripts
• Java Applets and Plug-Ins
• Server-Generated Pages
• Forms
• Images
• Deeply Linked Pages
• Reorganization and Broken Links
12. Major Search Engines
• Google – http://www.google.com
• Yahoo – http://search.yahoo.com
• Microsoft Bing – http://www.bing.com
• AltaVista – http://www.altavista.com
• Alltheweb – http://www.alltheweb.com
27. When Not to Use Google
• Google doesn't cluster results
• Google isn’t good enough to find a person's email address
• Google isn't the best place to find what an abbreviation
stands for
• Some topic-specific directories are simply more fine-tuned
than Google's regular full-text search
• When working on an in-depth research project (like a college
thesis), Google doesn't help you catalog multiple search
results, or let you take notes on interesting sites.
28. Web Catalogues or Directories
Massive online catalogs that are
edited, sorted, and organized by
humans
29. Major Web Directories
• http://directory.google.com
• http://dir.yahoo.com
• http://dmoz.org
30. Practical Tips for Managing Information
1. Using bookmarks
2. Printing information
3. Saving text for subsequent reading or
printing
4. Saving an image or diagram
