Week Five blog

Lecture: The fifth week of upc0004 was to do with the various search engines available on the internet and how there are different ways to use them more effiecently, it also coverered the certain problems and evaluated the different search engines available to us.

After been to the week five lecture we had learnt that although many of us think so, google is not the only search engine available and that there are many others out there than can be much more usefull regarding different search topics. Engines such as "Alta-vista", "search edu" have large databases nearly comparing to google but many people dont know the untapped potential these have.

Many of these also have there problems as mentioned before, Google the most decorated search engine is no were near perfect but because of it's popularity many of these are unnoticed by the general user. Often it produces to many results as it's filtering system is to broad, it also rank's eash source by its views meaning a very credible source could be on page 17 waiting to be used.

Workshop:This week's tutorial had us doing a variety of different tasks which included:

• Working through a tutorial located at http://www.monash.com/spidap.html and listing four different stratergies that will help us structure a good search. (part one)

• Complete an online quiz at http://www.siteseen.co.uk/questions/historytrivia/ and use different search engines and stratergies to find the answers to the various questions. (part two)

• Make a list and then summarise the various techniques and stratergies used when completing the quiz. (part three)

Task one:
Task one required us to look thoroughly through http://www.monash.com/spidap.html making notes on helpful stratergies when using search engines, some of these included:

• If you are interested in broad, general information then a directory is the place to start, however if you are more interested in specific information related directly to your search then using a search engine is the way to go.
  

• When using a search engine be sure to use key words related directly to your topic as sources are ranked according to how close the key words match the source document and how popular it is.
  

• When searching there a five main things to remember, these are "knowing were to search", "fine tuning keywords", "been refined", "query by exmaple"(option available on most search engines) and anticipate the answers, helping you find your ideal source.
  

• Make use of symbols such as + or - as these can be the difference between finding a good, average or bad source.

Task two: The second task required us to complete an online quiz at http://www.siteseen.co.uk/questions/historytrivia/ and use different search engines and stratergies to obtain the answers.

Question 1:

Question 2:

Question 3:

Question 4:

Question 5:

And so on untill finally you complete the quiz and see the following screen showing:



Certain stratergies i have used when doing this quiz is

• use + and - to include or disclude words




• refine my keywords so they are as close as possible to what i am looking for




• have in mind the answer im looking for to help me find the source of information faster




• use different search engines such as "altavista" to get different point of views.

Extra reading:


Web search strategies:

This article is plainly designed to help show you how to find what you want on the internet, knowing the source is reliable and credible. It basically describes the three different types of information available on the internet, varying from:

• The free visible web which is basically all pubically displayed images



• the free invisible web which includes articles on general information



• Paid databases, this includes libaries that are available over the internet

It also goes on to show the different types of search engines as well helpul keywords and tips when using various browsers.

The next source http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/chap4.htm included information about:

• The history of search engines

• How to find information on the internet

• Directories located on the WWW

• Search engines located on the WWW

• Databases located on the WWW

• Library catalougues located on the WWW

The information was quite basic but went into enough detail to benefit the reader.

The last of the Extra readings(http://myecu.ecu.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp) was about optimising you expierance when using search engines, there were five main points which included:

• Keyword analysis

• Setting your benchmark

• Search engine omptimisation

• Link popularity

• Measuring your progress

These points basically outline the basis of what you need to know in order to be able to search fast and effectively.