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Non-Tech : Binary Hodgepodge -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ~digs who wrote (99)	5/16/2001 3:07:36 AM
From: ~digs	Respond to of 6763

Search deeper on the Web By Lauren Wiley accessmagazine.com Can't find what you're looking for on the World Wide Web? It's no wonder. Typical search engines only skim the surface of the Web. What they don't see is known as the "deep" or "invisible" Web. The deep Web contains nearly 550 billion documents, compared with about 1 billion on the Web's surface, according to Internet content company Bright Planet. The deep Web consists of data that search engines generally miss, including PDF files, streaming audio and video, and information stored in databases, such as government records and telephone directories. It is not the place to look for Britney Spears photos. If you're looking for a specific piece of information, such as census data or patent listings, a typical search engine will direct you to Web sites that may have what you're looking for, but you'll often have to search each site to find out. "It's like getting to the door of a library, but not being able to see what's inside," says Chris Sherman, president of Searchwise, a consulting firm specializing in search technology. Searching a deep Web directory, on the other hand, can take a user directly to the Web page with the information. "It might save you a few steps or it might find something a search engine would miss," says Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch. Most deep Web directories cater to savvy researchers, though. They can be difficult to navigate, and new users may need to learn how the site works before they have any luck. Gary Price, a reference librarian at George Washington University and co-author with Sherman of "The Invisible Web," has indexed thousands of databases on his Direct Search site. He recommends that Internet users create a "tool belt" of resources to locate information they need and focus their searches. "Searching is all about limiting -- learning how to make your search set smaller," Price says. "Otherwise, you come back with 5 million results." To search the invisible Web, try the following sites: gwis2.circ.gwu.edu invisible-web.com infomine.ucr.edu completeplanet.com webdata.com dir.lycos.com and beta.profusion.com.