Getting StartedGetting StartedUsing Search Engines EffectivelyOne of the challenges faced by people using the internet is how to cope with the amount of information available – when using the internet, ‘information overload’ takes on a whole new meaning! With millions of sites in existence and more sites appearing daily there is an incredible amount of information available. A simple search can come up with many thousands of ‘hits’. Two key questions need to be answered when using the internet. How does one locate the information? And, once found, how can the quality of that information be assured? One method is the effective usage of search engines. Search engines are tools that have been created to explore the resources available on the internet. These search engines allow keyword searches by using devices known as ‘crawlers’ or ‘spiders’ to locate sites or pages on the internet that match requests. The Spider’s Apprentice site details how search engines work, and provides information on how to improve a search by using meta tags and keywords. It also ranks a number of effective search engines. No two search engines are the same and consequently an identical search conducted on different search engines will give different results. In addition to actually searching the web, search engines provide help functions and tips on how to make searches more effective. It is worth noting that no search engine searches the entire internet, they only search the sites that they have catalogued. Some of the better known search engines include:
Another well-known search engine is Yahoo which, rather than using crawlers and spiders, categorises sites by subject. When using Yahoo, you follow a path through the subject category until you find the information required. Meta-search sites or engines have been developed where a query is sent simultaneously to a number of search engines and the results are presented in one consolidated listing. One such site that scans quite a few search engines and hence often provides good results is Metacrawler. A drawback is that the prolific use of advertising can dominate the page. However, an enhanced feature of Metacrawler is that it lets the user know the search engine from which the information was located. Dogpile is extensive, user-friendly and frequently updated. Northern Lights is another very large and well-organised search engine. It incorporates newswires and organises them into folders. A fee-for-service may apply for unusual requests. IX Quick claims to be the fastest-growing meta-search engine since 1999. Vivisimo organises results into categories For more information on search engines the following site provides extensive information. Once a site that appears to meet the request of the user has been located, the quality of the site and the information and resources in it need to be evaluated. Stu Conger, through the International Association of Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) has developed a thorough set of ‘descriptors’ which assist in evaluating the quality of careers-related websites. The full document can be accessed at www.workinfonet.bc.ca . The following questions should be asked when evaluating websites: Author
Information
Currency
Navigation/Design
Cost
This article was taken from the internet job-seeking guide Working The Web. Col McCowan, Head Careers and Employment, Queensland University of Technology. Email: [email protected] and Mal McKenzie, Manager Careers Service, University of Technology, Sydney Email: [email protected] © 2008 Graduate Careers Australia |
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