Search Engines

The Internet continues to expand by leaps and bounds. There are millions of sites with little or no bibliographic control. Search engines, subject guides and metasearch sites help users conduct successful searches.

The Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT will help the user maximize the effectiveness of the search tools.

• AND Results will contain both search terms - less hits but more precise
• OR Results will contain either search term - more hits but less precise
• NOT Results will contain the first search term but not the second search term
  • makes a search more precise

Search Engines:

The search engine matches keywords with its database and returns hits. The results will vary depending on the size of the database, frequency of update, design and speed.

Alta Vista - combines a large Web database and full text articles from over 5,000 journals and business and news sources. It is updated daily. Utilized "Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT, NEAR (within 10 words). Two types of searches: simple and advanced. Rankings are available through the advanced search option.

Exite - consists of a collection of over 60,000 brief Web site reviews culled from Usenet classified advertisements and news group postings, as well as NetReviews. Utilizes Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT with nesting ( ). Results are annotated and posted in order of decreasing relevance.

Google - general web database with excellent ranking. Boolean operator AND is assumed; OR is not utilized.

Infoseek - searches the Web, Infoseek Select sites, topical news, Usenet newsgroups and company directories. No Boolean operators are used. Annotated results are presented in order of decreasing relevance.

Northernlight - a newer search engine with an expansive content. Classifies results dividing hits into search folders. Using these folders, the searcher can narrow the results. Utilizes the Boolean operators AND, OR, Not with nesting ( ).

Subject Directories/Guides:

Subject directories are used to browse general topics, but are not the best tool for in-depth information.

Britannica Web Best - accesses nearly 150,000 resources. Editors at Britannica annotate and rank the hits. Utilized Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT.

Librarian's Index - Public librarians have compiled over 5,000 high quality sources. Annotated hits are posted. The Boolean operator AND is implied between words. The operators OR and NOT are used.

Yahoo - accesses about one million web pages, e-mail addresses and news groups. Does not accept Boolean operators. Annotations (if any) take the form of a list of categories and sites that match keywords.

Metasearch sites:

These sites search several search engines at the same time Boolean operators are not accepted. As a result, their best use is to find postings on the Internet.

Dogpile - combines several medium and large web search and index guides into a single service. Provides stock quotes, Usenet articles, weather forecasts and yellow pages. Annotated results are posted within search engines.

Metacrawler - gathers information from the best search engines on the Web. It collates results, eliminates duplication, and provides a list of relevant sites.