PRACTICAL TIPS AND STRATEGIES FOR FINDING INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET

MID-SOUTH TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE

Middle Tennessee State University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. GENERAL TIPS
2. TIPS FOR USING SEARCH ENGINES
3. TIPS ABOUT MEGASEARCH ENGINES
4. TIPS FOR BROWSING DIRECTORIES
5. TIPS FOR FINDING SPECIALIZED SEARCH ENGINES AND DIRECTORIES
6. SUMMARY

1. GENERAL TIPS

• Be reasonable about what you expect to find on the Internet. Don't expect to find the full text of the latest best seller; do expect to find the latest images of the Hale-Bopp comet.

• Choose the best search utility.
  • Use a directory or subject guide for general browsing to learn what is available on a broad topic.
  • Use a search engine to search for a specific topic.
  • Use a megasearch utility to search for an illusive topic.
  • Use a specialized search utility to search for a specialized topic.

• Read the help pages for the search tool you use.

• Learn how the search software treats your query.
  • Is the case of the letters important?
  • In multi-word search queries are the words searched with an implied and or an implied or?
  • Is truncation automatic?
  • What part of the Internet is included in the search?
  • How much of a web page is indexed?

  
  

• Avoid using very common words which would be in thousands of documents. Even such words as "computer" and "Internet" are so common on the Web that some search engines will ignore them. If they are essential to your search, try binding them into an exact phrase with other appropriate words.

• Look at the word count of the results to determine what is really happening with your search terms.

• When too many hits are retrieved, add additional keywords, add Boolean operators, or utilize any special tools available in the search engine (AltaVista's "Live Topics" for example).

• When too few hits are retrieved, add synonyms connected by "or", use truncation/wildcards to expand a word, or use a broader word.

• Use more than one utility if your first search is unsuccessful or if you really need to find all that is available. Never depend on any one utility to find everything on a topic.

• Read the help pages and FAQs again.

2. TIPS FOR USING SEARCH ENGINES

• A. ALTAVISTA - SIMPLE SEARCH
  • Use all lower case letters to find either upper or lower case matches. Use exact capitalization to force a match on proper names or special capitalization
    

    Examples:

    • Turkey (to find the country, not the bird)
    • NeXT (to find the company)

  • Require the presence of a word in your results by preceding the word with a plus sign (+) or eliminate a word by preceding it with a minus sign(-). Note that there is no space between the sign and the query word.

    Examples:

    • +Tennessee +rivers
    • +suicide -cult

  • Enclose exact phrases in quotes.

    Examples:

    • "ham radio"
    • "Declaration of Independence"

  • Use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard or truncation symbol to get variant spellings, plurals, grammatical variants, etc. (It must be after at least three characters and may substitute for up to five lowercase letters).

    Examples:

    • photograph* - to retrieve photographs, photographer, photography, etc.
    • colo*r* - to retrieve the British or American spelling (color or colour) and various endings (colors, coloring, colorful, etc.).

  • Search by structural element to find only a specific part of a page. Enter the name of the element followed by a colon.

    
    Examples:

    • text:"CD ROM review*" (the exact phrase [singular or plural of review] found in the body of a document).
    • title:Reviews (found in the title tag of a document).
    • link:mtsu.edu (found in the URL of a hypertext link). This is a way to find any sites that link to your own site.
    • anchor:MTSU (found in the text describing a hypertext link).
    • url:library (this word is part of the URL).
    • host:frank (the computer name from the URL).
    • domain:gov (the domain name of the URL).
    • image:comet (an image or picture).
    • applet:java (a particular applet).

  
  

• B. ALTAVISTA - ADVANCED SEARCH
  • Use Boolean and proximity operators and nesting in parentheses for combining terms.

    Examples:

    • "Apple Computer*" and "annual report"
    • "business plan" and "small business*" and domain:edu
    • (Saturn or Nissan) near manufact* and Tennessee
    • (Franklin near Roosevelt) and not "New Deal" - Note that the correct entry is and not even though the AltaVista tips seem to indicate that you type only the word not.
    • "Habitat for Humanity" and ((Jimmy or Rosalynn) near Carter)

  • Use the "Results Ranking Criteria" window to bring certain hits to the top of the results list.

    Example:

    • Hillary near Clinton
    • then put Whitewater in the ranking window.

  • Use the Date window to limit results to recent updates of pages or additions to the search engine index.

    Example:

    • "Apple Computer* near ("annual report" or 10k)
    • then enter 1/1/96 - 4/4/97 in the date window.

• C. HOTBOT (An example of using menus)
  • In multi-word searches, choose how you want the search treated from the options in the pop-up menu. It may be "All the words" (Boolean and), "Any of the words" (Boolean or), "The exact phrase," "The person" (the first and last names near each other in any order), "Links to this URL," or "The Boolean expression" (a way to enter advanced search expressions instead of using the Modify Panel).

  • Use the Modify panel to narrow your search with other keywords.

  • Use the Date panel to narrow your search to documents created or modified within a specific date range.

  • Use the Location panel to limit your search to a CyberPlace (domains) or GeoPlace (large geographic regions).

  • Use the "Media Type" panel to limit by file types such as image, audio, Java, etc.

3. TIPS ABOUT MEGASEARCH ENGINES

• Examples of megasearch engines include SavvySearch, MetaCrawler, All-In-One Search, CUSI, Metasearch, and Starting Point.

• Megasearch utilities do not contain an actual index, but use the indexes of the search engines to which they point.

• Some megasearch engines perform a search simultaneously in a number of different search engines while others simply enter your query into the query line of several engines and you must tell it to perform the search. Sometimes megasearch engines do not take advantage of advanced search techniques offered by the individual search engines.

• SavvySearch includes nineteen different search engines. It will form a "search plan" for your criteria and will choose from two to five engines in which to perform your search simultaneously.

4. TIPS FOR BROWSING DIRECTORIES

• Select a subject directory such as:
  • Yahoo!, Magellan, and the Argus Clearinghouse.

• or select the subject directory portion of some of the major search engines such as:
  • Excite, Infoseek, and Lycos.

• Choose a broad subject area in the directory and then more specific areas as the directory allows.

• Look for options that limit your search to date ranges, weekly picks, or local editions (in Yahoo!).

• Look for a feature to also search the web. Yahoo! includes AltaVista on its pages.

• Decide if you want reviewed or rated sites. If so, look at Magellan, or the "Top 5% of all Web Sites" in Lycos, or Excite's Web Reviews.

• Check for special features such as News Center, People Finder, Bigbook Yellow Pages, and Stock Find.

• If you would like to set up your own personalized news page, try My Yahoo! or Infoseek Personal. These allow you to choose which subject categories and up-to-date news, sports, stocks, etc. that you would like to see each time you access your page.

5. TIPS FOR FINDING SPECIALIZED SEARCH ENGINES AND DIRECTORIES

• Check sites which organize specialized search engines. Two examples: Virtual Search Engines and The Internet Sleuth.

• Check major directories (Yahoo!, Argus).

• Look at the major search engines (Excite, Infoseek, Lycos) for features like City.Net on Excite and Big Yellow Pages on Infoseek. Also use the search engines to locate bibliographies of web search tools.

• Use your University Library's web site.

• Look at other sites focused on academic resources such as the InterNIC Academic Guide to the Internet.

• Read current computer magazines, periodicals in your field, and web sites of these publications. (Ex. PC Magazine Online Top 100 Web Sites).

6. SUMMARY

               INTERNET SEARCH UTILITIES DIRECTORY

SEARCH ENGINES

     Alta Vista     http://altavista.digital.com                 
     Excite         http://www.excite.com                   
     HotBot         http://www.hotbot.com                   
     Infoseek       http://www.infoseek.com            
     Lycos          http://www.lycos.com                    
     Opentext       http://index.opentext.net               
     Webcrawler     http://www.webcrawler.com               
     
MEGASEARCH ENGINES

     SavvySearch    http://guaraldi.cs.colostate.edu:2000/form
     MetaCrawler    www.metacrawler.cs.washington.edu:8080/
          index.html
     CUSI           http://www.nexor.co.uk/public/cusi/
     MetaSearch     http://metasearch.com
     Starting Point http://www.stpt.com/search.html

DIRECTORIES

     Argus Clearinghouse           http://www.clearinghouse.net
     Excite                        http://www.excite.com
     Infoseek see UltraSmart       http://www.infoseek.com
     Magellan                      http://www.mckinley.com
     Yahoo!                        http://www.yahoo.com
     Lycos                         http://www.lycos.com
     Lycos Top 5% Sites            http://point.lycos.com/
                                        categories/
     The Internet Sleuth           http://www.isleuth.com
     Virtual Search Engines        http://www.dreamscape.com/
                                        frankvad/search.html
     InterNIC Academic Guide       http://www.internic.net/
          to the Internet               aldea/attframes2.html
     PC Magazine Online Top        http://www.pcmag.com/
          100 Web Sites                 special/web100/_open.htm