Practical Tips and Strategies for Finding Information on
the Internet
Rhonda Armstrong
Lynn Flanagan
Introduction
As the quantity of information available on the Internet continues to explode,
it is
increasingly necessary to learn efficient ways of finding specific bits
of information.
Numerous search tools are available to help locate appropriate sources.
Without these
search tools, the chances of finding anything on the Web would be slim.
Even with the
help of the search tools, users must be able to use sophisticated searching
techniques
in order to find relevant information. This is essential due to the amount
of information
included in the indexes and the depth of the indexing. The purpose of this
article is to
help users understand the basics of how the major search tools work and
what is
included in the indexes. Only those tools which are freely available on
the Internet will
be included.
There are several different kinds of search tools
available free on the Internet.
One type, usually referred to as a directory or a subject listing, is created
by humans
who actually look at a site and assign it to a subject category. Yahoo!
is probably the
oldest example. Sites are compiled into a database with hot links to URLs
and usually
a brief description or review of the site. Even the largest directories
cover only a small
fraction of the pages available on the Web. Even so, when searching for
information on
a general topic, a directory is usually the best place to start.
Another type of search tool, usually called a search
engine, covers a much larger
part of the Internet. Search engines send computerized "robots"
over the Web to find
pages and record all or part of each page. The information is compiled into
a hugh index.
It is this index which is searched when a user enters a query.
There are many different search engines now available, and often the same
query
will find completely different hits using the different engines, depending
on how and what
the engine actually searches. When information on a very specific topic
is needed, a
search engine is the best place to begin.
Searchers must use several different search engines
to assure coverage of a topic,
just as several different print indexes must often be consulted. Because
it is time-
consuming to go to several different search pages and type in the same query
over and
over, another type of search tool has been created called Mega search pages
or Parallel
Search pages. They submit a query to several search engines simultaneously
or provide
a list of search engine query boxes on one screen. There are also PC based
software
programs available for purchase which accomplish this multiple search, but
they are not
covered in this article.
In the scramble to stay on top in the battle for
numbers of visitors to their search
pages and therefore the advertisers' dollars, some providers of search tools
are
attempting to add extra value to their sites. Some focus on a particular
subject; some
which were subject listings have added a keyword search of the Web; some
which were
keyword search engines have added subject category listings and/or reviews
of sites.
Just as most things on the Internet are constantly changing, so the search
sites multiply,
divide, combine with each other, appear, disappear, and change.
Search Engines
Different search engines have different features
and treat searches in slightly
different ways. Although it is easy to simply type in terms in a query box
and get results,
it is essential for users to understand specific search techniques in order
to get the most
from each different one. The importance of some of these techniques will
be discussed
and a chart presented at the end of the paper to identify how some of the
major search
engines treat them.
Treatment of Single words:
How does the engine treat a single query word?
Some automatically determine
the root of a query word and find all occurrences of the root. If this simply
means it
retrieves both the singular and plural forms, it may be a helpful feature
so that users do
not have to enter two words (as "cat or cats"). However, if the
root has several possible
endings, some of which are not relevant to the query, then unwanted matches
may be
retrieved. For example if the word "psychologist" is entered,
automatic searching for the
root would find all words beginning "psychol..." and thus find
psychology, psychological,
psychologically, psychologist, psychologists, etc.
Truncation or wildcards:
Sometimes a user wishes to search for a root word
or partial string. Many search
engines allow the use of a symbol, often an asterisk (*), as a wildcard
to substitute for no
characters or a set number of characters. This capability is useful in many
instances to
avoid entering several forms of a word connected by OR.
Case sensitivity:
Some search engines are case sensitive and some
are not. Usually the case
sensitivity is only when a query contains capital letters and not when a
word is all lower-
case letters. If the word "turkey" is entered as a query, most
engines will return all
references to Turkey or turkey or TURKEY or even TurKey. However, if the
entry word
contains any capital letters then only words which match the capitalization
exactly will be
retrieved. "Turkey" retrieves only Turkey and "TURKEY"
retrieves only TURKEY. This
feature can be very useful for proper nouns and for words with unusual capitalization,
such as NeXT.
Treatment of Multi-word Queries and Phrases:
Sometimes multi-word queries may be searched using
an implied AND, an implied
OR, or as an exact phrase. If AND is assumed, then a search for Hillary
Clinton returns
all references to both words appearing anywhere in the document in any order.
They
may refer to Sam Clinton and Hillary Jones. An assumed OR returns references
to any
occurrences of the word Hillary PLUS any occurrences of the word Clinton.
The
document may discuss only Hillary Jones and have nothing to do with Hillary
Clinton. On
the other hand, if the query is treated as a phrase, then the words Hillary
Clinton must
appear next to each other in that order. This search would miss any references
to Hillary
Rodham Clinton or Clinton, Hillary.
Some search engines allow the search for an exact
phrase by enclosing the words
in double quotation marks, as "to be or not to be," or by a choice
from a menu. Many
also allow the user to enter on the query line such limiters as a plus sign
(+) to insure that
a term is present and a minus sign (-) to eliminate a term. If an engine
defaults to
connecting terms with an OR, then using the plus sign (+) before each term
you require
will give more relevant results. Often the Boolean operators AND, OR, and
NOT or the
proximity limiters NEAR, ADJACENT, or FOLLOWED BY may be entered in the
query.
This is usually true if an "Advanced" search is available. Some
engines offer a pull-down
menu allowing such choices as "All of the words" (equal to AND),
"Any of the words"
(equal to OR), and "Exact phrase".
The NEAR operator requires that the two terms be
within a certain number of
words or characters of each other, but they usually may be in any order.
In Alta Vista
NEAR requires the words to be within 10 words of each other while in Open
Text it is
within 80 characters and WebCrawler provides a switch to indicate how close
NEAR
should be. FOLLOWED BY is a less frequently available option. As is implied,
the order
of the words is retained but the distance between words varies. ADJACENT
usually
means the words must be together in the order indicated. The user should
read the
documentation for each search engine to determine which of these limiters
are available
and exactly how they work in each one.
Another important question is whether the search
engine returns hits on every word
in the query, or ignores certain "stop words" which occur many
times in the index. Can
you search for the quotation "to be or not to be" or are all those
words considered stop
words? Many online databases ignore small unimportant words such as conjunctions
and
prepositions, but some Web search engines will also ignore such words as
"web,"
"internet," "system," and "university" because
they occur so frequently. The AltaVista
Search Revolution has a list of the 1,000 most common words found on the
Web (Seltzer
240-254). If possible, avoid those words in a query. Several search engines
save every
word of a Web page in the index which makes it possible to do exact searches
for
complete phrases and sentences. They may not be able to find our Shakespearean
quote when it is entered as a group of words because the common words are
ignored,
but they will find it when it is searched as a phrase. To lessen the problem
of ignored
search words, users should identify rare or unusual words or proper names
associated
with the topic, enter all words that may matter, or search for an exact
phrase when
possible.
Still another question is whether a query can be
entered as a natural language
question, such as "How long is the day in Juneau, Alaska in November?"
Some search
engines can take such a question and focus on the relatively rare words,
discard the
common words, and return the most likely matches.
Major Search Engines and Search Directories
AltaVista is fast, powerful, big, and fairly up-to-date.
The Simple Search mode is
easy to use, but knowing some tips such as enclosing phrases in quotes and
using the
+ and - helps to narrow the results. The Advanced Search allows sophisticated
search
techniques, but you must know how to formulate the complex queries. Users
may also
control the relevancy ranking by indicating terms to be weighted highest.
Note that if no
terms are entered in the box for weighting, then the results of Advanced
searches will not
be ranked at all.
Web searches may be limited by domain, host, or
media type and Usenet searches
may be limited by the structural elements such as all or part of an e-mail
address,
anything on the subject line, or all or part of a newsgroup name. See the
help pages for
examples of this very powerful feature.
HotBot is also fast and big. It claims to include
the most Web pages in its index.
Pull-down menus allow the equivalent of Boolean features. The Expert mode
lets users
narrow searches to a particular technology, site, domain, or geographic
location.
Open Text Index is not as large as HotBot or AltaVista, but it is a good
alternative
for an obscure topic. The Power Search offers standard Boolean functions
and includes
not only NEAR but also FOLLOWED BY. Truncation is not available, so alternative
forms
of a search term must be entered with OR.
WebCrawler is not as fast as AltaVista or HotBot,
but it returns good results.
Boolean features are available. The NEAR function allows users to set the
proximity, for
example Franklin NEAR/2 Roosevelt will get either Franklin Roosevelt or
Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. WebCrawler is operated and content produced by America Online,
but it is
free to the Internet. In addition to the Internet search engine, it offers
fifteen content
categories with sub-categories and reviews. Included in the subjects are
such categories
as entertainment, travel, sports, and reference which are aimed at the general
public.
A recent partnership with MapQuest allows a unique feature on WebCrawler.
When a search query in WebCrawler contains the name of any of the 22,000
U.S. cities
in the MapQuest database, the results page will include a hypertext link
to an interactive
map of that city.
Excite is one of the better of the search tools
due to the combination of the search
engine, reviews, current news, and other features. It allows searching of
the web,
reviews of sites, and Usenet newsgroups. Excite's NewsTracker contains articles
from
over 300 newspapers and magazines. A personalized start page can be initiated
through
Excite Live!
Excite is fairly easy to use yet powerful due to
the natural language searching, the
capability of all boolean functions, phrase searching, etc. It will also
provide the user with
similar "More Like This" sites. In the display of the sites found
on a query, the user may
specify sorting by relevance or sorting by site. The "sort by site"
feature is a good way
to find out how many different sites it really found because it will group
together the sites
that are just different pages of the same site (Excite).
Magellan, a subject directory site containing twenty-six
subject categories, has
recently been acquired by Excite and now contains some features of Excite.
Magellan
contains "rated and reviewed sites," "yet to be reviewed
sites," and "green light sites" as
the choices to search. The "green light sites" are those free
of content for mature
audiences (Magellan).
Ultraseek by Infoseek provides a powerful search
engine which is easy to use.
It will allow boolean searches, but the default is to use natural language
searching which
allows, for example, a user to pose a query of plain English. It will search
for phrases
which are similar to the query. Ultraseek also has a feature which allows
you to retrieve
pages related to those it has found (Infoseek).
Infoseek provides Ultrasmart, a subject directory
search engine. Ultrasmart has
twelve categories which are searchable. If you don't find what you need,
you may modify
your search to search the web instead (Infoseek).
Lycos contains a search engine, and two subject
directories (Sites by Subject and
Top 5% Sites). One feature that differs from many other search engines is
that although
the engine does automatic word stemming the user may require the engine
to search for
an exact match through the use of a period (.) after the word (Lycos). (Ex.
Education
would normally get education and educational. Education. would get only
education.)
Sites by Subject are the top 10% of sites most linked to by users. The Top
5%
Sites are those in the top 5%. Reviews are available for the Top 5% Sites.
In addition
to the sixteen subject categories, Lycos also provides current news, maps,
city
information, and a company database (Lycos).
Notable in Lycos is the new Companies Online database.
Lycos has partnered
with Dun & Bradstreet in creating this. Although it is not yet complete
(as of Feb. 1997),
it is worth a serious look for more information about companies than one
would normally
find on any of the search engines' pages.
One of the most popular directory search engines
is Yahoo! It was one of the first
large directories of this type and covers fourteen subject categories. Yahoo!
like many
of the other search engines is now including special features in addition
to the subject
categories. It is possible to see top headline news updated hourly (Today's
News),
search for news within the last seven days, and easily link to special search
engines for
companies and people (Yellow Pages, People Search) ("Yahoo Help").
Yahoo! has recently begun to offer Net Events which
searches for upcoming
events on the Internet such as links to broadcasts of C-SPAN, sports events
with live
audio, chat room events, and Fed Net America. Yahoo! allows an individual
to set up a
personalized start page through My Yahoo! A user specifies interests so
that a
customized page (My Yahoo!) will just display the appropriate subject headings,
current
news, stock quotes, etc. based on those interests.
Although too small to really be included in the
same category as the major search
engines, Cyberhound is a new search engine of only reviewed sites. It has
such
extensive search capabilities in the Expert Search option and has so much
descriptive
information that it is worth trying. Created by Gale Research, a well known
publisher of
reference works, Cyberhound currently contains information on 30,000 sites.
The ratings
system criteria are clearly defined for the areas of content, design, technical
merit, and
entertainment (Gale).
A chart presenting special subject features of
some of the previously discussed
search tools is included at the end of the paper.
Mega Search or Parallel Search Sites
There are many standard Web search services available,
each with its own
strengths and weaknesses. Users often need to repeat their queries using
different
services, which is time-consuming and awkward. Another level of service
is becoming
available which provides a single starting point for searching multiple
search engine
databases.
Some of these allow users to submit a query to
multiple search engines one at
time. Notable among this type are ALL-IN-ONE Search Page [www.albany.net/allinone/],
CUSI [pubweb.nexor.co.uk/public/ cusi/cusi.html] and c/net's search.com
[www.search.com].
Others, such as MetaCrawler, SavvySearch, and Infomarket
Search submit a
query to multiple search engines simultaneously. They do not maintain an
index
database, but query a number of existing free search engines and integrate
the results.
All-4-One [www.all4one.com/index.phtml] does a simultaneous query in AltaVista,
Lycos,
Yahoo, and WebCrawler, but it returns the results in four small frames of
a cluttered
screen rather than combining the results. More detail follows on the other
three mega
search or parallel search services.
MetaCrawler - www.metacrawler.com
An easy to use opening screen provides a query line and choice of searching
for
a phrase, all of these words, or any of these words. Users may also choose
either a
"fast" or a "comprehensive" search, but it is not clear
what is meant by these choices. An
option to search for a person's homepage using Ahoy!, which works very well,
is also
given on the first screen. The help page says searchers may use advanced
syntax on
the query line, including quotes for a phrase and + or - for requiring or
excluding a term.
MetaCrawler will use these features in the engines which support them.
It is not clear which specific search engines are
included in the search. The help
page says MetaCrawler sends a query simultaneously to "several web
search engines,
including Lycos, WebCrawler, Excite, Alta Vista, Yahoo, HotBot and Galaxy."
Extra Functionality, which must be enabled from the "Configure"
option, allows
setting maximum results per source from 10 to 30; time limit from 1 to 5
minutes; and
results from everywhere, a geographical area, or educational, commercial,
or government
sites.SavvySearch - guaraldi.cs.colostate.edu:2000/form
SavvySearch includes 19 search engines including
those which search Web pages,
Usenet Newsgroups, FTP sites, yellow pages and name directories, etc. It
makes an
"educated guess," using information from past searches, as to
which engines will do best
for the query and forms a "search plan." From two to five engines
will be simultaneously
searched, but other choices are available from the display of the plan.
The opening screen allows a choice of searching
for all query terms, a phrase, or
any term and retrieving from 10 to 50 results from each engine. Choose "Integrate
Results" to eliminate duplicates and display the hits from all engines
together. This takes
a little longer. The query is sent exactly as entered to the different engines.
There is no
option for NOT nor for letter case.
Infomarket Search - www.infomkt.com/
Infomarket Search is a type of specialized mega
search page. It is sponsored by
IBM and appears to be aimed more at the business market. Users may search
for free
and may purchase information using IBM's special Cryptolope technology for
this
purpose.
This service simultaneously searches multiple commercial
and Internet databases
including over 75 newswires, 300 newspapers, 819 newsletters, 6882 journals,
and 11
million companies in a variety of subject areas. There is little help available,
but the
screen is user friendly. There is no indication of how many hits were retrieved.
Sometimes a specialized search engine should be
used to locate information.
Specialized search engines focus on providing directories and/or search
engines for one
subject area. Since there are hundreds from which to choose, the following
directories/engines are just a small sampling to indicate the variety available.
A directory of sources for finding email discussion groups
(http://www.nova.edu/Inter-Links/listserv.html) is available at a page at
Nova Southeastern
University. Rob Kabacoff, who created and maintains the site (Inter-Links)
of which this
directory is a part, states in his site that it "was the first place
on the Web that provided
users with search engines for locating Electronic Mailing Lists, PC software,
Usenet
Newsgroups, E-mail Addresses, and GIF Images."
A Business Compass (ABC) (http://www.abcompass.com)
is a new specialized
search engine/subject directory of business research information ("A
Business Compass
Introduces" 41). According to the company, A Business Compass LCC,
the editorial staff
select sites that business people "can use for market research, industry
data, news,
analysis, and competitive intelligence" ("ABC Information").
As of this time, it searches
exact keywords only. It has subject, industry, and geographic directories.
Each site in
ABC contains a description of the expected business use of the site, content
description,
special features, and direct links to specific valuable pages within the
site as well as the
home page of each site.
Of the many sites available for searching for phone
numbers, email addresses,
etc., one might try 555-1212.com (http://www.555-1212.com). It allows searching
three
different databases of phone numbers, a reverse phone number directory,
yellow pages,
fax directory (under construction), and a Toll-Free directory.
Argos is a search engine which claims to be the "first peer-reviewed,
limited area
search engine (LASE) on the World-Wide Web" (Beavers). It limits coverage
to sites
which contain information about the ancient and medieval world and which
are approved
by an editorial board. Although the board does not approve each page, each
site as a
whole must meet the board's approval.
Conclusion
If one needs to find preselected sites which are
organized, described, and in some
cases reviewed, one should search first in the subject directory search
tools. Those
looking for very specific items will need to search in one of the major
search engines such
as AltaVista, Excite, or InfoSeek's Ultraseek. If the searcher needs to
be very thorough
in the search process or if the searcher is seeking a hard to find item
of information, one
of the mega search engines could be selected. Information sought in a specific
subject
area may be found more easily with a specialized search engine or directory.
Each searcher should become familiar with the search techniques in this
paper and
in the help screens which are available at each search site. By selecting
from among the
different types of search tools available, understanding search concepts,
and mastering
the search techniques of several of the major search engines, a user should
expect to
obtain fairly successful search results.
Search Engines
| Alta Vista | HotBot | Open Text | Webcrawler | |
| Web Address | altavista.digital.com | www.hotbot.com | index.opentext.net | http://webcrawler.com |
| Size | 54 million documents | 54 million documents; claims to be the most complete index | ||
| What part of Internet is included | Web pages & Newsgroups Choose from pull-down menu |
Web pages and Newsgroups Choose from pull-down menu |
Web pages, Newsgroups, email, & current events | Web pages, ftp, & gopher sites |
| What part of each page is included and searchable | Full text (but many stopwords). Can limit to title, parts of URL, & more. |
Full text. Opening screen allows choice for date, location, media type. Location includes "cyberplace" which is host name & domain. Screen also has options to Modify and use Expert mode. | Full text; claims there are no stopwords. Power search pull-down menu for Page Elements include: Anywhere, Summary, Title, First-Level Heading | Does not index certain words which appear frequently nor combinations of letters and numbers. |
| Natural language searching | Yes | Yes | No- searches for every word | Yes |
| Limit by required and prohibited terms (Boolean Operators) | Implied OR. Use +/- in Simple Search; Use AND, OR, AND NOT in Advanced Search. Use parentheses for nesting in Advanced Search. |
Implied AND. Pull-down menu offers: All the words, Any of the words, The exact phrase, The person, Links to this URL, The Boolean expressions. Use parentheses for nesting in Advanced Search. |
Implied AND. Can search for "these words" or "this phrase." Power search pull-down menu offers: AND, OR, BUT NOT. No nesting. |
Implied OR. Allows AND, OR, NOT. Use parentheses for nesting. |
| Limit by Proximity | NEAR=withing 10 words | No proximity, byt searching for a person uses a type of proximity. | Pull-down menu: NEAR=within 80 characters before/after. FOLLOWED BY = follows within 80 characters. | Allows Near with a switch to indicate how close (NEAR/20) and ADJ = together in order indicated. |
| Other Searching Features | Use quotes for a phrase. Truncation -- use * for up to 5 lowercase letters. All lowercase entries retrieve either upper or lower case; use of any capitalization limits to exact match. |
Use quotes for a phrase or choose from menu under "modify" option. No truncation. Ignores letter case except in "interesting cases" such as NeXT which matches exactly. |
No truncation. Ignores letter case. |
Use quotes for a phrase. No truncation. |
| Refining searches/finding similar sites | Query remains in box for easy revision. | A "Revise Search" button available at bottom of results list. | Option to "Improve your result" displayed when results are returned. | Query remains in box for easy revision. Choose a button from the Summary display to search for similar pages. |
| Display of results |
Displays 10 at a time; no limit. Choose display in standard or compact form. Relevance ranked-1st by location of terms and then by frequency. In Advanced Search user can control ranking. |
Displays 10 hits at a time unless changed in pop-up menu. Gives score of relevancy determined by frequency first, then location. | Displays 10 at a time; no limit. Relevance determined by frequency and location. "Summaries" are given with links. | Choose to display 10, 25, or 100 hits at a time. Choose to display titles or summaries. Icoin shows relevance ranking determined by frequency. |
| Special features | Allows user to input words for use in relevance ranking in Advanced search. Can limit both Web and Usenet searches in a number ways using the name plus a colon (example- domain: edu) | Expert mode allows narrowing by site, domain, geographic location, or technology. | The "Discover" button offers cool sites, cartoons, columnists, and other special searches. | Includes summaries of sites produced by analyzing first 100 words. Searches for US cities link to map of the city. Also includes some subject category listings. |
| Why or when to use site | Excellent for searches for obscure topics using advanced techniques. | Easy to use menus make this a good choice for beginning users. | A good alternative to AltaVista and HotBot which are larger. | Easy to use and especially good for popular topics. Often busy. |
| Excite | Infoseek Ultraseek | Lycos | Yahoo! | |
| Web Address | www.excite.com | www.infoseek.com | www.lycos.com | www.yahoo.com |
| Size | 50 million URLs | 50 million URLs | 70 million URLs | |
| What part of Internet is included | Web, Reviews, Usenet Newsgroups, NewsTracker (Click on Bullet to select) | Web, Usenet Newsgroups, News Wires, Premier News(7 news sources on Web), Email addresses, Company profiles, Web FAQs | Web, Sounds, Pictures, and by Subject (Pull down menu) | Yahoo! sites, Usenet, Email addresses (in Search Options Screen) |
| What part of each page is included and searchable | Full Text. Search on any word, sites, links, URL,, title words. | Yahoo Categories, Yahoo web sites, Today's news, Net Events. Search for title words, by date added. | ||
| Natural language searching | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Limit by required and prohibited terms (Boolean Operators) | Implied OR, accepts AND, AND NOT, OR, +, - | Implied OR, accepts +,0 | Implied OR, accepts -. Custom Search will do AND, OR, match 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 terms. |
Implied AND, accepts +,-. Search option screen will do AND, OR. |
| Limit by Proximity | No | No | No | |
| Other Searching Features | Use quotes for phrase, case sensitives | Use quotes for phrase or hyphens between words. Case sensitive, Capitalize proper names. Finds word variants (mouse, mice). | Use . at end of word for exact match. $ for truncation. | Use quotes for phrases. Case sensitive. * for truncation. |
| Refining searches/finding similar sites | Refind - Yes. Find similar sites with "More Like This" | Query remains in box and can choose "Search only under these results" to narrow. "Similar pages" feature. | Query remains in box, terms searched are displayed, and may choose to search those terms. May also choose to repeat searh in by Subject, Images, and Sound searches. | Query remains in box. Query can also be reivsed in Search Option Screen. |
| Display of results | Relevance ranked. User may specify sorting by sites. | Relevance ranked by location of terms, frequency, high weight (uncommon terms). | Relevance ranked. User may select display as summary, standard, or detailed and how many per page. | Relevance ranked by multiple keyword matches, location of terms, generality of category. User may choose Alphabetical order and may choose how many per page. |
| Special features | Excite Reviews, Reference categories, Personalized start page - Excite Live!, Newstracker (articles from over 300 newspapers and magazines). | Subject searching in Ultrasmart. Current news in News Center. Can search for images. | Advanced search screen - Custom Search. Subject category searching in Sites by Subject, and Top5 % Sites. | Net Events. Personalized start page - My Yahoo! Automatic link to Altavista if search not found in Yahoo! |
| Why or when to use site | Natural language searching, sort by sites featurem Reviews, Newstracker. | Natural language searching, ease of use, News Center. | Top 5% Sites, Sites by Subject, searching for images, Sounds. | Well-organized directory, Net Events, My Yahoo! |
SUBJECT FEATURES OF SEARCH ENGINES
| Features | Excite | Infoseek | Lycos | Magellan | Yahoo! |
| Finding People, Email Addresses | People Finder, Email Lookup | Big Yellow | People Find | People Finder, Email Search | People Search |
| Finding Companies | Bigbook Yellow Pages | Smart Info, Big Yellow | Companies Online, GTE SuperPages | Bigbook Yellow Pages | Yellow Pages |
| News, Weather | NewsTracker, Excite Live! | News Center, Personalized Info. | Top News | Excite Live! | Today's News, Yahoo! Weather |
| Business News | News Tracker | News Center | Top News | Excite Live! | Today's News |
| Stock Quotes | Excite Live! | Smart Info | Stock Find | Excite Live! | Stock Quotes |
| Regional Info, Maps | City.Net | Smart Info | City Guide, Road Maps | City.Net | Regional (subject), City Maps |
| Name of Subject Directory, Number of Sites | Excite Reviews, 60,000 reviewed | Ultrasmart | Top 5% Sites, Sites by Subject | Magellan, 40,000 reviewed, 15 million total | Yahoo! |
| Reviews, Ratings | Yes, Yes | No, Yes | Yes, Yes | Yes, Yes | No, Yes |
| Subject Categories | 20 | 12 | 16 | 26 | 14 |
| Education Subtopics | 14 | 15 | 7 | 34 | 32 |
WORKS CONSULTED
"A Business Compass Introduces Guide to Business Information on the
Internet." Information
Today Feb. 1997: 41.
A Business Compass, LLC. "ABC Information." 1997. <http://www.abcompass.com/info.html>
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