Web Browser 4h4z5v

Introduction to Web Browsers and Basic Search Strategies Using Search Engines Davina Pruitt-Mentle EDUC 478

Outline • • • • • • • •

History (WWW & Internet) Search tools Search Engines vs. Subject Directory Meta search Engines Steps for Searching Effective Strategies Narrow or broaden a search? Wildcards

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

2

Internet History • Internet made up of thousands of networks worldwide • No one in charge of Internet - No governing body • Internet backbone owned by private companies

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

3

Looking at the Net

Taken from: http://www.cio.com//sem2_net.html

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

4

Understanding the Map

• Computers use T/IP to communicate (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) • Computers use client/server architecture

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

5

Internet Providers: • • • • •

Research and Educational Institutions Government and Military Entities Businesses Private Organizations Commercial Providers

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

6

Internet Protocols • Email (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) • Telnet ( to remote host computer) • FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - transfers files between server and client • HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

7

History • WWW or Web or W3 includes all information, text, images, audio, video, and computational services that are accessible from the internet • July 8, 1999 Nature - approximately 800 million pages of publicly accessible information(1) • Web continues to grow, tripling in size over the past two years(2) (1) Steve Lawrence & C. Lee Giles, “Accessibility of Information on the Web,” Nature 400 (July 8, 1999), 107 (2) OCLC Office of Research, “June 1999 Web Statistics” Web Characterization Project EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

8

WWW • System of Internet servers that hypertext to access several Internet protocols on a single interface • Almost all protocols accessible on Internet are accessible on web (email - FTP - Telnet - etc) • In addition, WWW own protocol: HyperText Transfer Protocol EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

9

HTTP • Hypertext - means of information retreival • Contains links that connect to other documents • Links selected by • Virtual “web” of connections

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

10

HTTP (cont) • Produce HTTP through HTML • HyperText Markup Language • Way of writing or creating with “tags” added to tell information – i.e. Bold yields Bold

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

11

More History • Internet initially conceived in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (European Particle Physics Lab in Switzerland) • Needed a wide variety of information to be shared and distributed to many different computers and platforms • “Universal readership”

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

12

Web Popular Because: • • • • • •

Easy to use Easy to navigate Combines words, graphics, sound, video Easy to Publish Plethora of information Reach larger audience

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

13

Summary: Web vs. Internet • What is the relationship between the web and the Internet? • The Internet contains physical components – computers – networks – services

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

14

Web vs. Internet • The Internet connects thousands of computers across the world, but it is the web that allows communication to occur • Web - abstraction and common set of services on top of the Internet • Web - set of protocols and tools that let us share information with each other

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

15

Directed Search Strategies

Davina Pruitt-Mentle July Design Institute July 20, 2000

How Do I Find Information on the Internet? • an email discussion or USENET newsgroup • Go directly to a site if you have the address • Browse • Explore subject directory • Conduct Search EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

17

How Does Information Get Indexed by the Search Tools • A publisher of a web page can the site with the search engine or directory • Database collects data autonomously

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

18

Browsers • Netscape Navigator (Communicator) – Product of Netscape (Now owned by AOL) – Originally was dominant – Multi-platform (all operating systems)

• Internet Explorer – Product of Microsoft – Current Dominant Browser – Not available for all operating systems

• Browser compatibility problems can cause web page problems EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

19

Netscape Search

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

20

Netscape Search • 1: Access to different search engines • 2. Type words or phrases into text entry box • 3. Click Button • 4. Preserve favorite search engine

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

21

Internet Explorer Search

•Separate In Browser •Uses MicroSoft Network search

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

22

Internet Explorer Search • Direct access to only Microsoft Network’s search engines • Allows easy access to different types of search – – – – EDUC 478

Web pages People Businesses Maps Davina Pruitt-Mentle

23

Internet Keywords • Type straight in location bar of Netscape/Explorer • Simple words instead of URL (uniform resource location) • Words tie to websites • Can be tied to language preference • Example: Typing in maryland converts to http://www.state.md.us/ EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

24

Know your URL’s • “Address” of a file on the Internet • Contains type of protocol followed by the computer name, directory and file name • Examples – – – –

EDUC 478

http://www.capecod.net/Wixon/wixon.htm gopher://gopher.boombox.micro/ ftp:// wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/windows/psp3.zip mailto:[email protected]

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

25

Anatomy of a Web Address • protocol://host/path/filename See handout “Anatomy of a Web Address”

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

26

Two Basic Approaches to Searching (although not really “basic”) • Search Engines • Subject Directories

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

27

Search Engines vs. Directories Directories

Search Engines

• Human aided, organized list • May be general or subjectspecific • May be able to “search” directory

• Computer built index of information on web • More inclusive • Used to find specific resources • Searchable by keyword • Excessive “hits” • Every page of a Website is indexed • Better for general searches, but can be used to find specific information

– Google - general – NetTech Educational Technology Coordinator Website - subject specific

• has control of browsing • Fixed vocabulary • Links go to Website home pages only • Better at general searches EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

28

What are Search Engines? • Designed to assist you in searching through the enormous amount of information on the Web • No single search tool has everything • Each engine is a large database which utilizes different search techniques and tools (spiders or robots) to build indexes to the Internet (some also utilize submissions and istration) EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

29

Which Search Engine? • • • • • • •

Yahoo Altavista Excite Google NorthernLights Hotbot Infoseek

See Handout - “The Little Search Engine that Could”

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

30

How to Choose Consider • Size of the database (# of URLs) • Currency of the database (updates) • Search interface • Help screens • Search features • Results listed (# of documents retrieved) • Relevance of results EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

31

More About Search Engines • Searches for matching (keywords or several keywords) • Results “ranked” by relevancy (for some) • Can search by – subject or category – keyword

• Learn about each search engine’s description, options, and rules and restrictions EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

32

GO TO

http://www.google.com/help.html

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

33

 Searches for exact matches  Try different versions of your search term  Example: “Boston hotel” vs. “Boston hotels”

 Rephrase query  Example: “cheap plane tickets” vs. “cheap airplane tickets”

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

34

• Automatically places “and” between words (expands search) • To reduce search – – add more in original search – refine search within the current search results. (adding to first words will return a subset of the original query)

• Exclude a word by using a – sign – Example: to search bass but not speaker  bass –speaker • Does not “or” operator • Does not “stemming” or “wildcard” searches • Not case sensitive

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

35

• Finds street maps – Just enter a U.S. street address, including zip code or city/state into the search box – Google recognizes query as a map request

Try your address

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

36

Phrase Searches and Connectors • Phrase Searches are useful when searching for famous sayings or specific names “Gone with the Wind” • Phrase Connectors are recognized – – – – –

Hyphens Slashes Periods Equal signs Apostrophes • Example: mother-in-law

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

37

Stop Words • Stop words are ignored • These rarely help narrow and slow down search – – – –

http com certain single digits certain single letters

• to include stop words use [space]+ • Example – Star Wars, Episode 1  Star wars episode +1 – OS/2  OS/ +2 ***don’t forget the space before the + - signs EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

38

How to Interpret Results

See Handout EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

39

 Combines in one search a very large fulltext Web-page database (~160 million pages) with over 5,400 searchable full-text published (print) journals and an array of online news resources

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

40

 You may access both relevant web-pages and relevant journals and news releases  Tagged  WWW like other search tools or  Special Collection (published, fee-for-viewing journal articles or other publication)

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

41

GOTO http://www.northernlight.com/docs/specoll_help_overview.html

• To obtain an item from the Special Collection:  Click on link  Decide if you are willing to pay fee

• Page provides citation so you can locate publication in library EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

42

Unique Folders Approach • Results grouped in folders listed at left • Folders dynamically generated by search results – From a controlled vocabulary – Similar to library catag – Not fixed like subject directories

• Click on any folder to refine or further focus search • Sub-folders allow you to further “zero in”

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

43

Four Types of Folders • Subjects (baseball, desserts) • Source descriptors (commercial, personal, magazines, databases) • Types of documents (press releases, product review, maps) • Languages (major Romanized languages only)

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

44

Approaches to Searching

• • • • •

EDUC 478

Basic Search Power Search Industry Search Investext Search News

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

45

Basic Search • • • • •

Http://www.northernlight.com From Home Page Allows Boolean logic Phrase in “ ” Truncation (*for many characters or % for 1 character) • + requires, - excludes EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

46

Power Search • Http://www.northernlight.com/power.html • Combines ALL basic search features in one search • Limits to major language or country • Can select subject or document in advance

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

47

Industry Search • http://www.northernlight.com/business.html • All features of basic search • Can limit by date range or industry-based subject category • Default is ALL industries

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

48

Investext Search • http://www.northernlight.com/investext.html

• Search or browse thousands of investment research reports written by expert analysts.

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

49

News Search

• http://www.northernlight.com/news.html • Allows on-line news searches

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

50

“Meta” Search Tools • Multi-threaded search engines • Allows access to multiple databases simultaneously or via a single interface • (-) Do not offer the same level of control over search interface and logic as individual engines • (+) Fast • (+) Improvements – Results sorted by site used for search, or location of Website – Able to select search engines to include – ability to modify results EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

51

Popular Meta-Search Engines • • • •

Dogpile Metacrawler Profusion SavvySearch

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

52

Subject-Specific Search Engines • Do not index entire web • Focus within specific Websites/pages within defined subject area, geographical area, type of resource • Specialized search - depth rather than breath

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

53

Selected Subject-Specific Engines Companies • Companies Online (http://www.companiesonline.com/) • Hoover's Online (http://www.hoovers.com/) • Wall Street Research Net (http://www.wsrn.com/)

People (E-mail and Phone) • Bigfoot (http://bigfoot.com/) • WhoWhere? (http://www.whowhere.lycos.com) • Yahoo! People Search (http://people.yahoo.com/) • Switchboard.Com (http://www.switchboard.com)

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

54

Selected Subject-Specific Engines Images • The Amazing Picture Machine (http://www.ncrtec.org/picture.htm) • Lycos Image Gallery (http://www.lycos.com/picturethis/) • WebSeek (http://disney.ctr.columbia.edu/webseek/) • Yahoo! Image Surfer (http://ipix.yahoo.com/)

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

55

Selected Subject-Specific Engines Jobs • Hotjobs.com (http://www.hotjobs.com/) • Monster.com (http://www.monster.com/) • The Riley Guide (http://www.rileyguide.com/)

Games • • • •

CNET Gamecenter.com (http://www.gamecenter.com/) Games Domain (http://www.gamesdomain.com/) Gamesmania (http://www.gamesmania.com/) GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com/)

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

56

Selected Subject-Specific Engines Software • Jumbo (http://www.jumbo.com) • Shareware.com (http://www.shareware.com) • ZDNet s (http://www.zdnet.com/s/)

Health/Medicine • • • • • •

Achoo (http://www.achoo.com/) BioMedNet (http://www.bmn.com/) Combined Health Information Database (http://chid.nih.gov/) Mayo Clinic Health Oasis (http://www.mayohealth.org/) Medical World Search (http://www.mwsearch.com/) OnHealth (http://www.onhealth.com)

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

57

Selected Subject-Specific Engines Education/Children's Sites • AOL NetFind Kids Only (http://www.aol.com/netfind/kids/) • Blue Web'n (http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/) • Education World (http://www.education-world.com/) • Kid Info (http://www.kidinfo.com/) • Kids Domain (http://www.kidsdomain.com) • KidsClick! (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/) • Yahooligans! (http://www.yahooligans.com)

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

58

Subject Directories • Hierarchically organized indexes of subject categories • can browse through lists of Websites by subject in search of relevant information • Maintained by human • May include a search engine for searching their own database

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

59

Examples of Subject Directories • INFOMINE (Academic Scholarly Subject Directory - http://infomine.ucr.edu/) • LookSmart • Lycos • Magellan (http://www.magellan.excite.com/) • Open Directory (http://www.dmoz.org/) • Yahoo Many of these have aspects of both search and directory EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

60

Specialized Subject Directory • Guide complied by subject specialist • List important resources in his/her area of expertise • More comprehensive than general guide • Examples – Film: Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/)

• Includes Clearinghouses – Argus Clearinghouse (http://clearinghouse.net/) – About.com – WWW.Virtual Library (http://www.vlib.org/) EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

61

Summary • Search Engines • The Big Guys – Altavista – Google – Yahoo

• Meta-Search Tools – Dogpile – MetaCrawler

• Subject-Specific – The BigHub.com – Search Engine Colossus

• Subject Directory – LookSmart – Lycos

• Specialized Subject Directory – WWW.Virtual Library – About.com

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

62

Preparing to Search • What’s the topic, question, area of interest? • Identify search to describe your topic of interest • Consider synonyms (echinoderm OR echinoidea OR "sea urchin") • Consider variations of (restaurants, dining, gourmet) See Handout: Practical Steps EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

63

Search tips

• Enclosing a multiword phrase in quotation marks tells the search engine to list only sites that contain that exact phrase – Example: “heart disease”

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

64

Boolean Logic • Combines search in many databases • AND, OR, and NOT or (+) and (-) • Must check to see if search engines use Boolean logic

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

65

Boolean Logic : AND Limits your search

“Oral History”

&

Women

Only returns pages with both of these on them

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

66

Boolean Logic : OR Broadens your search

“Oral History”

OR

Women

Returns every page with either of these on them EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

67

Boolean Logic : NOT Limits your search

“Oral History”

NOT

Women

Only returns pages that contain one but not the other term on them

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

68

Wildcards • Special Character that can be appended to the root of a word so you can search for all possible endings to that root • Good for variant spellings and common root words • Example – rocket* will yield rocket, rockets, rocketry psycholog* = psychology, psychological, psychologist – colo*r = color and colour EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

69

Ctrl-F • Follow a link to a document retrieved by a search engine and don’t know how relevant • Ctrl-F finds the relevant words in current document • Example: women +“El Salavdor” +“Oral History” – Pick one link, then Ctrl-F

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

70

Searching Summary • Choose a search engine – Personal preference – Different engines for different purposes

• Syntax - quotations, Boolean logic, wildcards • Ctrl-F to find search words • Try to stay focused on your task

EDUC 478

Davina Pruitt-Mentle

71