WEB SEARCHING
There are three main ways
of finding web sites:
- Search Engines
- Directories
- Links from trusted web sites
We will spend the most
time with search engines, but the other two are useful, so don't forget about
them!
Search Engines
You are probably most
familiar with looking for sites using a search engine -- you enter you terms
and the search engine returns a list of web pages that had your terms somewhere
in them.
Pros
- Quick and straightforward.
- You get a lot of results.
- Excellent for finding popular
materials and services.
Cons
- There is a lot of junk, including
misleading and malicious material.
- Since there is little or no human
involvement, the search is only as successful as you make it; you will
need good searching and evaluation skills to find good sites.
- The page you really want might
be buried in a list of thousands of results.
Examples
Considered the first stop
by many Web searchers. Has a large index and results are known for their high
relevancy. Includes ability to search for images, and products, among other
features.
General web search engine
from Microsoft.
One of Google's
specialized search tools, Google Scholar focuses primarily on information from
scholarly and peer-reviewed sources. By using the Scholar Preferences page,
you can link back to URI's subscriptions for access to many otherwise fee-based
articles.
A general search engine
with a focus on user privacy.
Directories
Directories are
collections of links that usually have been collected and organized by human
beings. The often give brief descriptions of the sites, so you can easily chose
which ones you want to try.
Pros
Pros
- You generally know what you are
getting; a good directory is going to point you toward good sites.
- They are often focused on a
particular set of information (e.g. government resources or game sites).
- Someone has selected them for you,
removing a lot of junk and malicious sites.
Cons
- You need to find a good directory.
- Because they are put together by
humans, they require more time to construct and maintain -- you are more
likely to find broken links and you will likely not find the most recent
material.
- You usually have to search through
the layers of the table of contents rather than searching for keywords.
Examples
A combination search
engine and human-compiled directory, Yahoo also allows you to search for
images, Yellow Page listings, and products.
A collection of carefully
selected and arranged Internet reference sources, online texts, online
periodicals, and library-related links. Includes IPL original resources such as
Associations on the Net, the Online Literary Criticism Collection, POTUS:
Presidents of the United States, and Stately Knowledge (facts about the
states).
This is a collection of
links collected and maintained by the URI librarians. It is arranged by
subject, like our online databases, and provides access to free internet
resources to enhance your learning and research options.
Links from Trusted Sites
When you find a good and
useful site, it is almost always worth looking to see if the site has a
collection of links to similar sites. Like using the bibliography at the end of
a paper or book to find related sources, this is an excellent way to save
yourself time and effort.
Pros
- You generally know what you are
getting; a good site is going to point you toward good sites.
- They are very often extremely
focused; a site on underwater archeology is most likely to link to other
sites on underwater archeology.
- Someone has selected them for you,
removing a lot of junk and malicious sites.
- Since they are so focused, there are
usually a limited number of options, saving you time working through
multiple layers (like in a directory).
Cons
- You need to find the linking page in
the first place; this usually requires using a search engine or directory.
- Like directories, you may find out of
date material and broken links, depending on how often the page creator
updates the site.
Web
Browser
When you want to visit
your favorite mall and shop at all the fine retailers, how do you get there?
Most of us would prefer to use a car because it's fast, it's convenient, and
you can use all the goodies like the air conditioner and the radio. Like a car helps
us get to the mall quickly, a web browser allows us to travel through the
Internet and visit our favorite websites. And just like we have preferences in
cars, we have our own taste in design, function and brand when it comes to
websites. Personally, I prefer Acura as my automobile of choice; with regard to
traveling the Internet highway, my 'go-to' choice for web browsers is Mozilla
Firefox, just as a personal preference.
Some cars have satellite
radio where you can download and listen to unedited music. With a web browser,
some come loaded with different features, such as a built in FTP client where
you can download movies and music files. There is an option to surf the
Internet anonymously - which is like riding in your car with the windows tinted
- no one can see what you're doing or have in your car. Some cars even utilize
encrypted keys that keep your car safe from theft by burglars, much like web
browsers have encryption that prevents hackers from looking into your Internet
traffic and stealing valuable information. This can include bank accounts, log
on names and passwords, and even private emails.
But what exactly is a web
browser? A web browser, or 'browser' for short, is computer software
application that allows a person to view the Internet. The browser operates at
the application layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.
________________________________________________________________________________
This week has learned a new topic of web searching. In
this topic, I have learned how to make the search and the search engine has to
work to find the search. In addition, I also know the pros and cons when doing
a search. there are many kinds of search applications such as Google, Yahoo,
Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Safari and others. What I learned on this minggi very
helpful to me and colleagues.
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