Finding Information on the Net

Learning to find information quickly on the Internet does take a bit of skill and practice. There are many search engines, and many directory services.

The trick is learning which ones are best suited to what you are looking for. There is a comprehensive list of Search Engines and Links on the LiSP Search Page.

Search Engines

These use a "brute force" method of searching. A Search engine is simply a computer that is constantly searching the Internet, following link to link, adding pages, and keywords to its' database.

When you use a search engine, you type in several keywords, and the engine will scan its' database, and retrieve all pages that contain those words.

While this is usually very fast, it does have a downside: the number of results. Often, if you use a common word, it will be in the millions.

Most Search Engines have a technique for using them effectively, to narrow down, or more accurately find pages.

Eg: in AltaVista, use a + (plus) in front of each word to force it to be included. Use a - (minus) infront of a word to exclude it from a search. +red +car +holden -ford would find all pages containing the words "red", "car", "holden" but NOT the word "ford"

Directories

These operate differently, in that the require a bit more time and effort to dig through the categories they offer. A good example is Yahoo!

Although you can still type in a keyword, you can often find a much more specific listing of websites related to the topic you are searching for. eg: Sports - Regional - Australia - Australian Rules - Clubs

The disadvantage of Directory style listings, is that they only contain the TITLE and ADDRESS (and often just a one line sentence describing the site).

Sites like Yahoo don't keep a database of every single word within every webpage on the Internet, like Altavista and Anzwers do.