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| Information Literacy Guide | Locating Information | Electronic Searching | Resources | Site Outline |
Locating Information: Electronic Searching: Search Engines |
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The web is a very interesting medium for locating information:
When you use the web for research, don't assume: "You can find it faster." |
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On this page, "web pages" means the
"free web" or web sites anyone can access, not the web-based
research tools like the databases that the library subscribes to
for District 4J students and faculty.
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Directories |
Best used for: browsing subjects; finding quality web sites.Search Tips:
- When using a directory's keyword search option, note the subject categories your search retrieves;
- Best used for: browsing subjects; finding quality web sites.
Directories organize web sites by categories (i.e. subjects). People who work on directories decide in which category a web site should be listed. Since directories are built and maintained by people, directories include far fewer web sites than search engines. However, directories are the best place to begin browsing a subject, and most directories focus on including quality web sites.
Search Engines |
Best used for: finding specific sites or specific information.
Search Engine Watch
Do you want to know how to USE search engines to actually FIND something ? This is the place!! It contains the world's largest collection of directory and search engine tips, tricks, reviews, and guides. A very helpful site at SearchEngineWatch is "Search Engine Math".Search Tips:
- Use more than one search engine;
- Explore each search engine's various search options;
- Don't assume the first hit is the best one;
- But if you don't find what you are looking for in the first 25 hits, modify your keywords and search again.
Search engines use software called spiders, webcrawlers, or bots to automatically collect the words on millions of web pages. These words are fed into a searchable database. So when you search a search engine, you are not searching the Web -- you are searching that search engine's index of web pages collected by its spider in the recent (or not-so-recent) past.
Relevancy software determines in what order hits are listed. Search engines are extremely incomplete in terms of retrieving most of what is available. Also, there is little overlap between the search engines' databases. Therefore, use more than one search engine on a regular basis.
Visit the Electronic Searching and Keyword searching page for background concepts.
Metasearch Engines |
Best used for: searching for obscure keywords; getting an overview of what's available.Search tips:
- Keep your search simple -- use only a few keywords;
- Note the search engines used by a particular metasearch engine.
Metasearch engines send your keywords to a few search engines and give you the combined search results. Metasearch engines can't handle complex searches, so keep your search terms short and simple.
Portals |
Best used for: finding the most popular types of information (weather, stock quotes, sport scores, etc.)
Portals attempt to provide such a wide variety of information and services that one would rarely need to browse elsewhere on the web. Portals are designed for the general public. Most include a basic search engine as well as a search directory.
Learn More About Searching |
An excellent source for statistical comparisons of search tools. Comparisons of the search options each tool offers are also available.
Provides news, commentary, and comparisons of search engines. This site includes reviews of search engines and links to web
searching tutorials.The articles in the "In the Spotlight" column are useful.
| Defining | Locating | Selecting | Organizing | Presenting | Evaluating |
Please send comments or questions to the 4J
Web Team.
Eugene School District 4J
200 North Monroe Street, Eugene, Oregon 97402
Phone: 541.687.3123 [TTD 541.687.3447]
Last modified: October, 2003 by Steinke, Ague, Feuerhelm, Maxwell, and Warburg