Search engines match your query words against pages in
their index.
Directories match your query words against their
hand made site lists.
General tips: vary your query (more/less/different
words), use lower case, be aware of search features and
if you aren't finding good pages, switch to a different
engine/directory.
How can you decide where to search?
Understanding difference between search engine and
directory can help.
e.g. a directory won't list a person's name (unless they
are famous).
e.g. A search engine can return a page containing a word
lots of times, instead of returning a good page.
microsoft
Rule of thumb: Try the directory. Usually will return
something (Yahoo has a
deal
with Inktomi).
Finding new/rare information can be hard:
Search engines don't index the whole Web.
They cover different pages.
So you might need to search more than one to find out
about e.g. comp1900
Problems with finding the comp1900 page
Yahoo! has no
directory entries. The Inktomi results are OK but
sketchy.
Anzwers only
looks at Australian pages, has a smaller job, so misses
less within its domain.
MetaCrawler is a
meta-searcher. It searches lots of search engines and
combines their results. AltaVista returns the 1900 home
page, and Excite returns Carol's home page.
Exes is a directory of
travel information. Search for olympics
Combination of site search and meta-searcher:
Ask Jeeves has a searchable
list of questions and answers and uses other search
engines.
Final points:
There are general search engines, directories, subject
search engines and site search engines.
A meta-searcher automatically queries multiple search
engines.
There's no easy way of finding the right search engine
for your query.
So try lots of different search
engines/directories.
Try Citysearch for Canberra or Anzwers for Australia.
Try a meta-searcher for hard to find information. Keep
bookmarks for White Pages and other specialist search
engines.
