| Continuing our discussion
on how to find information from Internet - we look at ways to make
search result more fruitful.
At the heart of any search endeavour, no matter what
kind of search tool you are using, there are three areas that can
affect your search result significantly:
-
Content of search engine
-
Search logic or algorithm
-
Presentation of search result
Content of search engine
A search engine collects information for its database
by accepting listings sent by websites who want exposure, from its
own spiders (please see earlier discussion) or by simply using databases
of other search engines (e.g. meta search engines). There are two
issues in the process that you, as information searcher, should
be aware of:
-
Focus of search engine
-
Degree of information collection
There are thousands of search engines - and each has
a focus area. Few big ones like Yahoo!, Alta Vista or Google are
universal - they accept information on any subject or from any geographical
area so long as the website satisfies their respective editorial
policy. However, most others are selective on content. For example
- country specific search engines accept webpages only from or on
the concerned country. Subject specific search engines do not accept
webpages on alien subjects. Even universal search engines like Yahoo!,
MSN etc. have their country specific versions (e.g. Yahoo! India)
So, if looking for information on Australia - look for
Australia specific search engines.
There are many sources in The Net that compiles information
on search engines. Following are a few for your convenience:
Degree of information collection
Though actual working of Spiders is closely guarded
secret in many cases - it is generally assumed that they start with
a historical list of links, such as server lists, and lists of the
most popular or best sites, and follow the links on these pages
to find more links to add to the database. A spider could send back
just the title and URL of each page it visits, or just parse some
HTML tags, or it could send back the entire text of each page. The
coverage and degree of indexing can have a bearing on quality of
your search result.
Many search engines use 'fields' to store information
collected from various parts of a webpage. The title, the URL, image
tag, hypertext link etc. are common fields on a Web page. Field
searching allows the searcher to designate where a specific search
term will appear. Rather than searching for words anywhere on a
Web page, field-specific searching can considerably reduce unwanted
or junk information in search result.
For example, in Alta Vista - the searches
text:infobanc
Finds pages that contain the specified text (i.e. infobanc)
in any part of the page other than an image tag, link, or URL.
title:'The Great Indian Bazaar'
Finds pages that contain the specified phrase 'The
Great Indian Bazaar' in the page title (which appears in the title
bar of most browsers).
url:text
Finds pages with a specific word or phrase in the URL.
For example - url:export will find all pages on all servers that
have the word export anywhere in the host name, path, or filename.
More search tips in coming issues
Related Links:
Source: FAIDA
- Newsletter on Business Opportunties from India and Abroad
Vol: 3, Issue 11
July 4' 2002
Author :
Dr. Amit K. Chatterjee
(Amit worked in blue-chip Indian and MNCs for 15 years in various
capacities like Research and Information Analysis, Market Development,
MIS, R&D Information Systems etc. before starting his e-commerce
venture in 1997. The views expressed in this columns are of
his own. He may be reached at amit@infobanc.com
) |
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