This weeks lecture was about online search tools. Search tools may fall into one of two categories: search engines or directories.
Search engines are a web-based program that allows users to quickly locate specific information online. Information is collected from online documents by using scripts, which allow the search engine to crawl and index websites. They are usually sorted by relevance and keywords. Examples of search engines include; Google, Yahoo, AllTheWeb and more.
Whilst search engines can be an extremely useful tool, there are many problems associated with them.
» Search engines yield too many results.
There are hundreds of thousands, and even millions of results that appear at the same time.
» Limited quality filtering.
Often it is hard to filter exactly what is relevant and what is not. It is not uncommon to see pages and pages of irrelevant information appear.
» Broken links.
Sometimes websites may be listed on the search engine that are broken and do not work.
» Misuse of ranking system.
Depending on the search engine, websites can modify their page to become the first website to appear. This can sometimes be done by adding irrelevant and myriads of meta tags and keywords on the page.
To help refine search results, there are multiple basic queries that can be used. These include searching using: keywords, phrases, Boolean (shortcut symbols eg: plus or minus a keyword, or the use of quotation marks) and advanced search engine features.
To help refine searches, there are are a few tips to keep in mind. There is no need to limit yourself to only one search engine! Often search engines such as Google provide tips to help you find exactly what you are looking for. Use several keywords rather than just one or two. This helps to specify not only what you are looking for, but more so in what context! Quotation marks search for a specific phrase rather than keywords, which can be useful in reducing the amount of irrelevant information. However, make sure you know exactly what it is you are looking for before you search! This will save time, and help you locate information quicker!
WORKSHOP ACTIVITIES
As part of this week's workshop activity, we were required to complete an online quiz. The quiz was intended for us to use search engines to find our answers. A screenshot of my final result can be found below.
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