FYI! Checkout, paragraph #2 ISLEUTH (SLEU) had a good burst now is filling in the 7-8 range. Affiliated with Inktomi with more to come
Ba YHOO.
From the March 1998 Issue of PC World
The Ten Essential Rules of Web Searching
by Michael Cahlin
1. Know where to go. Directories--catalogs of sites organized by subject (Yahoo, for example)--are best if you want to quickly find information on a general topic (say, a biography of Pablo Picasso or a guide to Tex-Mex cooking). Search engines like AltaVista are best used for pinpointing specific pieces of information (say, an image of Picasso's Guernica or a recipe for pork tacos).
2. Think small. Be on the lookout for smaller or specific databases, advises Coco Halverson, a data cyberlibrarian who has taught classes on Web searching at the University of Southern California. For a bunch of specialized search engines and reference tools, check out Internet Sleuth (www.isleuth.com) and All-in-One Search Page (www.albany.net/allinone).
3. Be specific. "The best queries consist of terms, words, or phrases that exist only in the documents you want," advises Halverson. Stay away from common words such as 'baseball' or you'll wind up with thousands of useless responses. "Use as many unique keywords as possible."
4. Learn the lingo. Make sure that you use quotation marks for names and phrases. Learn to use Boolean operators--words like 'and', 'or', and 'not'--that let you find info by playing two keywords off each other--like 'comic books AND Superman' or 'comic books NOT Batman'. Alas, search language is not standardized on all search sites, so you must first check the site's help section to see which version it uses.
5. Watch your spelling. Few things waste more time on a Web search than misspelling a keyword, laments Brad Hill, the author of World Wide Web Searching for Dummies, 2nd Edition ($24.99, IDG Books, 1997, 800/762-2974). For example, a search for 'potatoe' will not be as bountiful as one for 'potato'. Similarly, a search for 'Dan Quail' will not result in any information about former vice president Dan Quayle.
6. Launch multiple browser windows. Fire up your browser, then open a second browsing window. (In Netscape, select New Browser from the File menu; in Internet Explorer, select New Window from the File menu.) "Anchor one window on the search results page and use the other to track down data," suggests Hill. This is exactly the idea behind IE 4.0's new search pane. Click the Search button, and various search engines appear on the left side of the screen, with results in the right-hand pane.
7. Keep moving. Don't look beyond the first page of search results, advises Hill. It's better--and faster--to try another search using different keywords.
8. Leave your mark. When you find a site that looks interesting, bookmark it or simply print the first page. Don't linger. Stay focused on the hunt.
9. Check the URL. If the Web address is long or has a tilde, Hill says, that's a quick tip-off you're looking at a personal Web page. Unless you're looking for obscure or technical info, you can move on.
10. Go get help. "The rules for one [site] may differ from another--or may have changed since your last search," says Halverson. Even if it's not your style to stop to ask for directions, search technique gold can be found in every search engine's help section.
|
