An Expert's Guide to Searching the Web
By
Professor J.T. Johnson
SF STATE PROFESSOR
Cyberspace can present a frustrating trudge though a boggy swamp or an easy cruise in the fast lane if you know where you're going and how to effectively use the tools to get there.
Most of us know how to search the World-wide Web using handy search engines like Altavista or even Yahoo. But don't think you're seeing all the cyberlibrary if you use one of these search engines.
Librarians and other information specialists who study such matters find the best of these specific search engines only identify about 16 to 18 percent of the pages on the WWW at any one time.
That shortcoming is a result of some technical issues (the amount of time it takes a "spider" to search all of the WWW) and some human issues. Yahoo! databases, for example, are constructed by real people, not some sneaky software that just keeps on truckin' through the Web 24/7.
Most journalists don't know how to use search engines beyond the obvious.
A recent study of how reporters and editors use the Internet conducted by PR man Don Middleberg and Columbia professor Steve Ross found that Yahoo! is what print journalists like best, but not for the best of reasons.
Ross says this is because Yahoo! is a simple portal. "Meta-search engines," he added, "are not at all popular among journalists." Ross explained this is, in part, because "reporters are not all that well trained. The reporters aren't going to other search engines because they don't know they exist and they can't evaluate them."
So what's this meta-search engine stuff? A meta-search engine is a search engine of search engines. They simultaneously send your query to multiple search engines. As the results of all those searches come back toward your desktop, most of the metasearch engines will delete duplicate hits.
This means you don't have to make separate trips to Yahoo!, Excite, About.com or Hotbot to run your searches.
I have a couple favorite metasearch engines I use daily.
The first is http://lii.org [correct, there is no "www" on this one). This is the Librarians Internet Index, housed at UC-Berkeley. The mission of librarians is to find and classify the best information on any subject, and this site delivers high-quality goods.
A real advantage of this site is that it classifies search engines aimed at specific topics. (Altavista, Yahoo! and their ilk take the general store approach: sometimes you need a specialty shop.)
For example, entering the keyword "horses" in Altavista returns 963,865 hits. A similar search in LII returns only 20 hits, but, I submit, they are more useful because the librarians have vetted these sites and found them valuable.
Another favorite is Search Engine Guide (http://www.searchengineguide.com/) has more than 3,000 search engines in its index. That means it will take you to search engines that target specific industries or topics, including 67 to "News and Media." This homepage also has a link to its mailing list, a good listserve that helps you stay on top of new developments in the metasearch world.
Other sites to check out:
www.metacrawler.com - Searches a dozen of the major search engines; allows setup customization for experienced searchers.
www.copernic.com - This is a free Windows application that you download to your desktop and install. Can search 64 search engines, 32 at a time.
www.easynett.com/search/#superlist - Scroll down to "All in One Search Pages" and go nuts; these links will help you procrastinate for weeks.
www.MegaGo.com/megago.htm - A search engine with classified - no, not that type of classified -- topics.
