Searching The Internet

A Tutorial of Search Techniques

There are three main considerations to searching for information on the World Wide Web:

1. Which site will you use?

2. Are you searching for general or specific information?

3. Will you be performing a simple search or an 'advanced' search?

These issues are discussed below.

Which Search Site Will You Use?

Search sites can be broadly categorised into:

'DRILL DOWN' SITES

An example of this type of site is Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com Choose from the 20 categories at the top level of Yahoo, and select more detailed categories from beneath until you uncover the information you are looking for. You should use 'drill down' sites if you are looking for information of a general nature or browsing for information within a particular category.

KEYWORD SEARCH SITES

An example of this site is Alta Vista www.altavista.digital.com Alta Vista indexes every word on every Web page that it knows about. You should use keyword search sites if you are looking for highly specific information that can be identified easily by a particular word or combination of words. Many services index the actual content of Web Pages, allowing you to enter the terms you want to search for. These services may also retrieve vast amounts of irrelevant information. Be sure to read their instructions to help you refine searches if you find too much information. To navigate the Internet try using the following search tools. Sometimes tools overlap e.g. search engines may also display their own subject directories.

http://www.AllOneSearch.com All-in-One Search Page

http://www.altavista.com - a fast, powerful way to search for the topic you want

http://www.anzwers.com.au" Anzwers - designed for Australian & New Zealand users

http://www.excite.com Excite

http://www.alltheweb.com/ Fast Search

http://www.google.com/ Google - largest, fast new search engine ... Recently rated the Number 1 Search Engine

http://www.hotbot.com/ HotBot

http://www.infoseek.com/ InfoSeek - excellent search and directory tool

http://www.northernlight.com/ Northern Light - new, fast search engine

http://www.webwombat.com.au/ Web Wombat - searches Australian sites

http://webcrawler.com Webcrawler

http://www.looksmart.com.au Looksmart

http://www.altavista.yellowpages.com.au GOeureka

http://www.infoseek.com Infoseek

http://www.lycos.com Lycos ... Rated Number 2 Search Engine

http://www.werple.net.au/~lions/index.html Beyond the Black Stump

http://your-sweetheart.itgo.com/Matilda.html Matilda

SPECIALIST SITES

You should use specialised search sites when searching for information within the following categorises:

E-mail addresses http://www.murdoch.edu.au/dirs/dirs.html

Software (http://www.shareware.com)

ALL-IN-ONE, REFERENCE OR DATABASE SITES

An example of this type of site is:

Online teaching database: http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/wattle/ceo/index.htm

Curriculum Database: http://stage.cecnsw.catholic.edu.au/joshua/gerardsay.asp

All the Web: http://www.alltheweb.com/

Ask Jeeves: http://www.askjeeves.com/ - a plain English site utilising multiple search engines

Calder.Net: http://www.calder.net/launch/ameta.htm

Savvy Search: http://www.search.com/

All-in-one sites take a single search expression and forward it to several other search sites. Search results are returned from all sites. This type of search takes longer to process but is more likely to produce the required result when searching a single site. Other examples include:

http://www.dogpile.com Dogpile

http://www.allsearchengines.co.uk/ All Search Engines

http://www.metacrawler.com/index.html Metacrawler

http://www.search.com/ Search.com - searches 700+ search engines, directories, auctions etc

http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,,000AFV,.html WebFerret



Database or reference tools

Online teaching database: http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/wattle/ceo/index.htm

curriculum database: http://stage.cecnsw.catholic.edu.au/joshua/gerardsay.asp

All the Web: http://www.alltheweb.com/

Ask Jeeves: http://www.aj.com

Library Spot: http://www.libraryspot.com

Electric Library: http://www.elibrary.com

Funk and Wagnalls: http://www.twu.ca/library/Funk&Wagnalls.htm

Encyclopedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com

Virtual Reference Desk: www.redesk.com

Business and Technology Research Library: http://www.brint.com/interest.html

Find It!: http://www.iTools.com/find-it

Liszt: http://www.liszt.com

Ask an Expert: http://www.askanexpert.com/

Electronic Emissary: http://emissary.ots.utexas.edu/emissary/index.html

ERIC: Ask ERIC: http://ericir.syr.edu/

Ask Jeeves: http://www.askjeeves.com

All the Web: http://www.alltheweb.com/

Big Six Sites: http://www.big6.com

World News

CNN: http://www.cnn.com

New York Timesa: http://www.nytimes.com

The Times (London): http://www.times.co.uk

Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com

News Trawler: http://www.newstrawler.com

Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com

Australian News

ABC: http://www.abc.net.au

The Australian: http://www.news.com.au

Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au

Melbourne Age: http://www.theage.com.au

Business Review Weekly: http://www.brw.com.au

Australian Financial Review: http://www.afr.com.au

Nine Network: http://ninemsn.com.au

Australian Government

Federal Government: http://www.fed.gov.au

Business Entry Point: http://www.business.gov.au

Bureau of Statistics: http://www.abs.gov.au/

Australian Tax Office: http://www.ato.gov.au

Tax Reform: http://www.taxreform.gov.au

Copyright Council: http://www.copyright.org.au

Austrade: http://www.austrade.gov.au

Consumers: http://www.consumer.gov.au

AusIndustry: http://www.ausindustry.gov.au

Business Magazines

Inc.: http://www.inc.com

National Library of Australia – Journals: http://www.nla.gov.au/oz/ausejour.html

Other Search Tools

Listservs and Newsgroups

http://www.deja.com/ Deja.com - Usenet discussions

http://www.kovacs.com Directory of Scholarly and Professional E Conferences

http://www.liszt.com/ Liszt, The Mailing List Directory- 80,000 listservs

Subject Guides - individuals or groups with particular expertise compile subject guides to resources or specific areas of knowledge.

http://www.4anything.com/ 4Anything Network

http://www.clearinghouse.net/ The Argus Clearinghouse

http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/page1.html EdNA Online - for the Australian education community

http://infomine.ucr.edu/ Infomine

http://www.ipl.org/ref/ The Internet Public Library Reference Centre

http://lii.org/ Librarians' Index to the Internet

http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/kids.html Kids search engines - guides and resources for kids

http://www.martindalecenter.com/HSGuide.html Martindale's Health Science Guide http://www.scout.net/ Scout Report Signpost

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Collections/acadtarg.html UCB Internet Resources

http://conbio.net/vl/ WWW Virtual Library

Please note other search tools included in Explore the Internet categories under http://explore.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/ Ask a Librarian http://www.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/stateref/askalibrarian.htm

Email Addresses

It is currently difficult to find the email address for someone on the Internet. I have listed a number of tools that may be useful, but there are no comprehensive searching tools or directories for Australian email addresses at the moment:

http://www.sofcom.com.au/Directories/EMAIL.AU.html

http://www.email-it.net.au/index.htm

http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/

http://www.iaf.net/

Software Collections

There are many sites that provide access to useful software and programs. Australian locations generally provide faster downloading. The following is a list of some useful sites.

http://tucows.wire.net.au/

http://www.unimelb.edu.au/public/aumirrors.html

http://telstra.com/index.jsp

http://thedownloadplace.com/software.html

May all your searches be successful …


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