Data, data everywhere and a manager that cares not to think. Business needs decision support --
Instead we're awash in digital ink! -- Bill Ringle The next time that you type a keyword
phrase into your favorite search engine and get back several hundred thousand
"hits" on your "report" consider the following distinctions between
Internet resource portals (sources of information about web sites based upon category,
keyword, or other related arrangement to assist people in finding relevant sites based
upon an entered request). All resource portals are in essence
database systems. They contain web site listings and information about each site. That
information could be in a variety of forms depending on the search engine. It could range
from the first few paragraphs of text from the home page (also known as the default or
index page), all the text from every page on the site, to just the meta tags (html code
that lists keywords and descriptions of the site irrespective of the page content). The
basic idea is that when a visitor to the resource portal enters a keyword phrase, the
database searches its records to find the best matches according to rules that it has.
These "hits" are then returned to the person making the request to evaluate and
use. Resource portals are funded largely through advertising that appears on the pages as
the visitor interacts with the database interface. A directory (such as Yahoo or Northern
Lights) gathers its listings manually. In other words, an entry is not considered until
someone from outside the company submits it (several end-user software packages and online
services can automate this process). Best uses for a directory are when you are looking
for a broad, well-organized, but non-comprehensive range of information. A search engine (such as Alta Vista,
Excite, or HotBot) gets its database input from software run from the search engine site
sometimes called a "web spider" since it "crawls the web" looking for
sites to include. This a more proactive approach, and as a result, search engines
typically have a much longer list of sites to compare your search phrase against than
directories. The more familiar you are with the advanced features of a particular search engine, the better you will be able to succeed in the most important challenge of using a search engine: narrowing your search. Use a search engine when you're looking for depth of information on a particular topic; be wary, though, of non-authoritative sources that a search engine turns up. Specialized search engines are the best
place to find answers to very particular queries, such as telephone look-ups on
WhoWhere.com, industrial pump vendors on ThomasRegister.com, or word origins on OED.com,
for example. Metacrawlers (such as metacrawler.com)
search attempt to give you the best of both search engines and directories by submitting
and organizing queries sent to several search engines at one time. Local software versions
of this method are available. The best that I've seen are Copernic (Windows and Macintosh
versions), and Apple's Sherlock, an integrated operating system feature. Expand the tools in your toolkit. Visit
SearchEngineWatch.com to browse the latest information if you're curious. After all, with over 70,000 search
engines available, the superior tool for the purpose at hand may be different than the one
or two places you normally look. It's a big Internet out there. Developing your search
engine skills is a key step in getting smarter about how you use the Internet. |
