Search Engines: Introduction

There are dozens of search engines available on the web. Several have been around since the mid-90's and are feeling their age. "Second generation" search engines with capabilities far beyond the "first generation" engines have been introduced and fine-tuned in the past several years. In this exploration, we will focus on strategies to effectively utilize the strengths of these search engines.

It is important to keep in mind that search engines are machines and that they can only return what we asked for, not what we meant to ask for. Often, a slight change in the keywords submitted to the search engine results in a dramatic improvement in the quality of "hits" returned.

The most important part of searching the web occurs before you enter any text in the search box. The few minutes spent in analyzing your search topic before beginning the search will be time well spent. We have provided a handout for that purpose.

Click here to open the Analyze Your Search Topic handout in a new browser window. Print several copies of this handout for use in this module.

Spend several minutes completing the "Analyze Your Search Topic" handout. Don't worry if you can't think of multiple entries for each section. You can add them as you begin your search.

Note: The links to online search tools in the sections that follow will open in a new browser window. If your monitor is large enough, you can resize the browser windows to allow you to see both this window and the search engine window at the same time. If not, you can use the Alt-tab (Windows) or Apple-tab (Macintosh) keystroke combinations to quickly switch between windows. You could also use the task bar, finder or dock to switch between browser windows.

Next: Searching with Google