NWIC: CMPS101 Web Searching Presentation
- 1. Web Searching Techniques CMPS101: Introduction to Computers
- 2. What is a Search Engine? A search engine is a special program on a website that looks for other websites that contain words that you designate. Some Search Engines search the entire Internet, while others search only the website where it is located. *This is Google’s Search Engine interface CMPS101: Introduction to Computers
- 3. A Search Engine’s main purpose is to find specific words within a website. Example: I heard on the news that a new animal was discovered in Japan and I want to learn more. It’s called the Eel Shark. If I type Eel Shark into a worldwide search engine, my results will include pages that only have the words ‘eel’ and and the word ‘shark’ in them. Any pages that have either of these words alone, will be omitted. CMPS101: Introduction to Computers
- 4. While its easy to just type in the words you want to find, most Search Engines have more advanced functionality built in, so you can find better results. Poor example of search criteria: CMPS101: Introduction to Computers
- 5. Using Quotes If you type two or more words, a Search Engine will not treat them as a phrase, but will search for each word independent of each other. Example: ✖ In this case, the Search Engine will search for websites that contain the words Northwest, Indian, and College anywhere on the page, in any order. (You may get results that talk about any any college in the northwest that mentions indians) Example: ✔ In this case, the Search Engine will search for websites that contain the phrase “Northwest Indian College”. Basically, it treats this CMPS101: Introduction to phrase as one word. Computers
- 6. Using the ‘+’ Operator Usually, if you type two or more words, the search engine will include results that have all of these words. Some words, however, are ignored, such as ‘who’,’what’,’where’, ‘I’, ‘and’, etc. If you want to include these words in your search, you need to tell the Search Engine that they’re important. To do this, you include a + immediately before the word like this: *Notice, there is no space between the + and the who. All Advanced Searching tools work like this. If you leave a space, the Search Engine will search for the +, like it was a word. Though 99% of the time, you don’t need to use this, the next tip is very useful. CMPS101: Introduction to Computers
- 7. Using the ‘-’ Operator If you find that you’re results include too many websites that aren’t related to your search, you can exclude certain words if they are unrelated. This way you can narrow your search quite effectively. If you want to exclude these words in your search, you need to tell the Search Engine that they’re not important. To do this, you include a ‘-’ immediately before the word like this: This will give you results related to NWIC, but will exclude webpages than mention the library. Usually, you won’t know to exclude a word until you’ve done an initial search. CMPS101: Introduction to Computers
- 8. Types of Websites Aside from the common .com, .org, .net, and .edu., Websites come in many different flavors. Each country actually has their own special website suffix (ending). Here are some examples. Country Commercial Website Academic Website USA .com .edu Canada .ca .ca UK .co.uk .ac.uk New Zealand .co.nz .ac.nz Spain .es .es Germany .de .de Australia .com.au .edu.au Japan .co.jp .ac.jp CMPS101: Introduction to Computers
- 9. What’s in a name? When you go to an internet address, this address is called a URL or Universal Resource Locator. Basically, its an address that tells your computer to go and look at another computer’s files on the internet All URLs break down like this: edu • Domain - the type of website nwic • Domain name - the name of the website online • Sub-domains - a specific area of the website /Moodle19/… • Folders on the computer your are browsing View.php?... • Page identifier When you look at a webpage, all the text, picture arrangement and other things you see are written in a code HTML (meaning HyperText Markup Language). Your Web browser can interpret this code and display the webpage on screen. CMPS101: Introduction to Computers
- 10. Using the ‘site:’ Operator When looking for academic sources, the best place to find these is on academic web pages, but how do you search an Academic Web Page? If you want to search within a specific website, you just tell the search engine where to search. To do this, you include a site: immediately before the site you want to search, then any words as usual, like this: This will give you results from NWIC’s web pages that include the word library. This will give you results from any academic web pages that CMPS101: Introduction to include the word library. Computers
- 11. Bringing it all together A very effective way of Web Searching is to combine all of the previously mentioned steps into one search. Here’s an example. 1. The Search Engine only looks into web pages at NWIC’s website 2. The Search Engine looks for any pages that include the word Library. 3. Within the results for criteria #1, the Search engine excludes any pages that include the word ‘virtual’ You can use these operators in any order you wish, so feel free to experiment and change them as you go, if they don’t give you the results that you need. CMPS101: Introduction to Computers
- 12. End of Presentation. If you want to know more about Advanced Google Searching not covered in this presentation, please visit http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=1221265&answer=136861 Don’t hesitate to contact your instructor if you have any questions. CMPS101: Introduction to Computers