Search Engine Tips & Techniques

What does "Google" mean?

The name "Google" is a play on the word "googol," which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. A googol refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by 100 zeros. A googol is a very large number. There isn't a googol of anything in the universe -- not stars, not dust particles, not atoms. Google's use of the term reflects our mission to organize the world's immense (and seemingly infinite) amount of information and make it universally accessible and useful.

More information about Google can be found at http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

Terms

Search Engines: Designed to retrieve information from URL’s (Uniform Resource Locater’s), and web page content, and make this information searchable in an indexed format.

Boolean searching: allows for advanced searching by using the words AND, NOT, OR, or in some cases the symbols +-/.

Truncation: advanced searching which allows the substitution of a symbol to broaden search hits: impression* = impression, impressionists, impressionism, etc., Also called wild cards.

Phrase searching: allows searching for exact or bound phrases, usually involving quotation marks or parentheses surrounding the phrase.

There are several search engines available, via the Search option on web browsers such as Safari or Internet Explorer, to help locate information on the web. These search engines may vary each day, and in fact, new search engines are emerging regularly, each offering a slightly different style of searching. Search engines may also vary in the number of web sites indexed, how often they are updated, and how sophisticated a search they allow the user to construct. Most search engines have either a help, or about option, which will explain how the search engine is updated, and what kinds of searches it can perform.

Search Engines & Directories

There is a subtle difference between a search engine and a directory on the web. Yahoo has one of the oldest directories available on the web. As a directory, Yahoo chooses specific web sites, which are then presented in topical indexes such as the Yahoo Arts Index. When you search on Yahoo, you are searching pre-selected sites, not the entire World Wide Web. This limitation is in fact what makes Yahoo a great starting point. Since many new web users are overwhelmed by the amount of non-relevant information they find, Yahoo provides them with pre-selected sites, organized topically, not unlike a library. In fact, if you don’t find what you need in Yahoo’s directories, and you choose to search the web, you are actually searching the web with the search engine AltaVista.

*Note that many university and library sites have excellent mini directories as well. The Dartmouth College Library site includes excellent directories of free and subscription based sources such as the eResources

http://library.dartmouth.edu/eResources/home.php

www.google.com

· acts as a search engine

· can serve as your customized desk top organizer

· allows Boolean searching (and/not/or), defaults to search with and. Can eliminate terms with the – symbol before a word, or includes with the +, useful for including necessary stop words, although you could also use quotes

Bass –music, for fish not instruments

· skips stop words, such as; the, and , at, etc.

· not case sensitive

· uses “”for phrase searching

· automatically stems or truncates words and allows wildcard searching with the *

· Web directory

· See who links to your site

Link:www.dartmouth.edu

· Domain search with the term site,

Admission site:www.dartmouth.edu

Music site:uk

§ Can search ranges of numbers and dates

DVD player $50..$100

· You can find currency exchange amounts – 200 USD in GBP

§ Allows you to set preferences for language, site filters, and search result displays

§ Offers several Advanced search features

§ Offers specialized search features, such as:

Froogle – for shopping

Local – for information from your region

News – from around the world

Directory – categorized listings, similar to Yahoo or a library catalog

Scholar – searches scholarly publications online (remember to set your preferences)

Images – finds images from a variety of sources

Specialized Searches – includes US government sites

Google Alerts – set up an email alert to receive breaking news on a topic or news story

Weather – find the weather for any US location

Book Search

Movie Search

…. and many more options!

www.yahoo.com

· more of a subject directory then a search engine

· includes an Arts Index - www.yahoo.com/r/ar

· has many other user friendly features like People Search, and email, etc.

· allows Boolean searching

· uses * for truncation

· uses uppercase for exact match

· uses “” for phrase searching

· allows URL searching

altavista.com

AltaVista was developed by Digital Corporation in the 1990’s, as the first free public search engine developed by a computer company. Digital was also one of the first corporations to join ARPAnet, the original internet, and the first company to register a URL. Alta Vista was developed by Digital with the goal of creating a search engine that was powerful enough to search the entire web, including both words found in URL’s and in page content. The second goal was to make this information available quickly and in an organized format, so both simple and powerful search options were added to allow users to refine their searches as needed.

AltaVista Simple Search Strategies

· Use specific terms: collie instead of dog

· Searching is case sensitive when placed within quotes

· Use “” to find a specific name or phrase: “mark dion” will find mark dion’s only, not mark smith’s and john dion’s, etc.

· Use the + to include sites which have specific words, - to exclude words: cats + dogs will find sites which have both cats and dogs mentioned, cats – dogs will find sites that only mention cats, and exclude sites that mention dogs, cat dog will find sites that have cats or dogs mentioned (a much more broad search).

· Use a wild card symbol : colo*r finds both color and colour, impression* finds impression, impressionism, impressionist, etc. (again a much more broad search).

· Search for structural elements in the web page:

Title: monet searches the HTML title tag of the page

Text: encaustic painting searches the text of the page only

Link: elvis.com searches links to a page only

url: elvis searches for web pages that have these terms in their address

host:amazon.com searches for the host computer name only

domain: com searches the last part of the host name only

image: monet.jpg searches for image files with that name

applet: king searches for applets (small computer programs within web pages)

Some sample searches:

“Mona Lisa” –Louvre

finds sites about the Mona Lisa that don’t mention the Louvre

Monet+garden*

finds sites about Monet’s gardens and art

+link:www.dartmouth.edu

finds sites that link to Dartmouth College

To find specific people, enter their name, or search for “white pages” to reach a white pages web site.

Advanced Searching on Alta Vista

Typically, the simple search works well, but there are more advanced options:

· Enter selection criteria: search terms

· Enter results ranking criteria: which terms to prioritize

· Enter dates for the search: 3/Jan/97 3/Jan/99

· Use the words and (&), or(|), not (!), near (~)

weather and forecast near extended

weather & forecast ~extended

· Use parentheses to group searches:

(American near Indian*) or (Native near American*)

Meta Search Engines such as MetaCrawler - searches multiple search engines at once.

Search engines should have a help option that will detail search strategies and any commands needed. They should also have an information option that tells you how many sites they index etc. Most search engines support simple keyword searching as a starting point. Keep in mind that what works in one search engine may not work in another.

*note: to save a search, choose file from the menu bar, then choose save as, and name the file, and choose a location, then click OK.