Week Five - 27th March

Using Search Engines

Tutorial
We were instructed to work through Monash University's Excellent Interactive Tutorial on search engines and directories and list four strategies that will help structure a good search.

1. Make sure that you spell the words in your search correctly, with the correct punctuation
   
2. Try to narrow down your search
   
3. Find information by searching on either the author, the title, or the subject. You usually choose the subject option when you want to cover a broad range of information.


4. If you are clear about the topic of your query, start with a Web directory rather than a search engine.

Internet Quiz

Strategies I used to locate the answers and their effectiveness:

• When searching for the year someone was born in I did their name + the year and it was very effective I found the answer straight away
  
• Use the search engine effectively look for the keywords and search for what you are looking for


• I searched for the different answers in the search engine until i found the appropriate information
  

Information that is found on the Internet can sometimes be very helpful and other times be the complete opposite, you have to know the correct way to find specific information so that you don't find information that is irrelevant to the search you were initially doing.

Lecture

What I learnt during this weeks Lecture:

• Search tools fall into two main categories - Search Engines and Directories
  
• Search Engines are web-based application (programs) that searches the internet and creates indices of websites usually from text information contained on them
  
• Problems with search engines ie, too many results


• Directories are human-edited


• Different types of directories


• Examples of both
  
• Search tips when using search engines / directories
  

Readings
Reading 1 - Robert Harris: "Web Search Strategies"
This reading was Robert Harris's Web Search Strategies and it proved very interesting and helpful - he had categorised the information on the web into different sections. He had made a quick guide to choosing a starting place which was interesting to read and he also had organised important search tips so that they were easy to follow and to understand.

Reading 2 - The History of the Internet (Chap 4 - Search Engines)
This reading was some extra reading on the history of the internet regarding search engines, it had some graphs showing webpages that were indexed and the different search engine sizes.

Reading 3 - Search Engine Optimisation for Companies
The third reading for this week explained about keyword analysis, Search Engine Optimisation, Link popularity and measuring your progress - All very interesting to read.