Searching the Web:

Stuff and Nonsense

Searching the Web for a particular piece of information can be an exercise in frustration and futility. It may not be out there in the first place and even if it is it may not be readily identifiable or findable. There are two basic strategies that you can employ to find something.

(1) Directories, Guides, and Indices

If you want to collect larger amounts of information on a topic or simply have a general interest in a topic and want to browse what is out there, let someone else do the work for you. There are many guides on the Net for every topic (and subtopic). The first place to start is, of course,

• Yahoo!

They were here first, and remain the best. There are other places as well that catalog general guides. Many guides have disappeared or have not been well maintained

• The Clearinghouse
• Infoseek
• Lycos A2Z

For Political Science I recommend:

• Poly-Cy

(2) The Search Engines

While the Guides are the way to learn the lay of the Net in a general subject, the Search engines provide the ability to search for specific bits of information. The problem with Web searches is that there is no adequate cataloging system and searches produce copious amounts of useless URLs for every search. A bit of practice can improve your searching skills.

First, where to search

• Google (Perhaps the best Overall Search engine
• Alta Vista (Digital Equipment Corp)
• Excite
• HotBot
• InfoSeek
• Lycos (CMU)
• Webcrawler

There are others as well. See Poly-Cy's Search Engine Page for more:

Searching the Web requires filling out a form with keyword(s) and having the search engine check its data base and return to you a list of any Web pages that have those terms in their content. Alta Vista Search (this will take you to Alta Vista's page)

Search the Web Usenet

The problem is that it will return too many URLs. There are, however, ways to improve searches. Let's take an example. According to a NYTimes, most people on the Net are searching for sex, Star Trek, or their own name. Since the first is too inappropriate, the second too frivolous, I'm compelled to turn to a self-centered example. It will, however, prove instructive in ways that few other topics could

• Using Alta Vista, search for Duval.

  As of this writing, over 10000 URL's are generated from that simple search. After all, it is returning a list of all documents with Duval in them.

  This can be refined simply by including my first name as well, Robert Duval.

  Note that Alta Vista provides twice as many (20000) URL's now!. That is because it gives you all documents with either Robert or Duval in them.

  This can be refined simply by inclosing key phrases within quotes "Robert Duval". This provides a quite manageable 84 URL's. Quote strings for standard names or phrases will often be your best searching strategy.

  There are other also useful techniques, involving the Boolean (logical) terms and, or, and not, plus the useful term near. Try some advanced search options with each of the following and see how they work (and how they don't!)

  • "Robert Duval"
  • "Bob Duval"
  • Robert or Bob Duval
  • Robert or Bob near Duval
  • "Robert Duval" or "Bob Duval"
  • "Robert Duval" and "Bob Duval" and not "Robert Duvall"

  Now, because not all search engines are created equal, go to Excite or AltaVista, and repeat the experiment. Then perform a search of your own name.

  Excite's advanced Search options use + and - and is case sensitive. And, according to PC Magazine, Excite gives a larger number of relevant sites first. Take a look at their Advanced Search description.

  Hotbot provides several search options including boolean searches, phrase, people, any of the following words, and URLs.

  Use several engines and decide which you prefer, and for what reasons. Currently, I am using Google for general information searches and AltaVista for searching for specific URL's(i.e polsci.wvu.edu/Duval, etc.