Course Modules:
Comprehensive
Web Search
Strategies
When you click on the course search engine webpage below you will see the names of several search engines with which you may already be familiar. I have selected only a handful of search engines from the hundreds available with the notion that it is better to learn to use a few search engines well than to try every search engine that is available. I selected the search engines that have been consistently rated in the top 10 by information science professionals.
As you locate web resources related to your search topic in the activities that follow, add them to your Bookmarks/Favorites list.
You will begin your exploration of search engines with a simple comparison of the number of results returned for an identical search query on multiple search engines.
July 2007 Update: As you will see later in the advanced searching module, the critical issue in evaluating the strength of a search engine lies more in the relevancy of the results than in the number of results. However, at this point in the course, comparing the number of results has value in determining the relative size of the search engine's database of indexed sites. This exercise will also allow you to become familiar with the basic user interface of the selected search engines.
Resize this web browser window to create some room on the screen. Open NotePad, TextEdit or your word processor and then open the TEC 912 digital logbook in a second window. Then, click on the link below to open the Search Engine webpage in a new browser window.
It is fine if you get sidetracked on this initial visit to the search engines. One of the real joys (and distractions) of using search engines is the serendipitous discovery of interesting webpages. As you locate useful webpages, be sure to bookmark them for use in your web search project.
You will notice that all of the search engines have a similar user interface. Somewhere between all the ads and text on the screen you will see a white text entry box. Move the cursor to this box and click once. Enter the search topic you selected (nothing extra this first time through, just the general topic). Click on the Search button or hit the Enter/Return key. While you are waiting for the search engine to return the "hits" (webpages that match your query), examine the search engine interface.
Record your observations of the search engines in the digital logbook.
At this point, you probably need to give your eyes a rest and stand up to stretch. Do that now. When you return, you will spend some time discovering what was going on behind the scenes when you sent those queries to the search engine.
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