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Search Engines
Contrary to popular belief, when you use a search engine like
Google, you are not searching the entire web. Instead, you
are searching a database compiled and indexed by the search
engine - a process that is entirely automated. Search engines
use "robots" or "spiders" to regularly
scour the Internet, looking for new or updated pages.
These are then indexed and compiled into the database. Google
no longer publishes the size of its database, but in 2004,
it was estimated to contain more than 8 billion pages! When
you submit your search terms, the search engine searches its
database for matching terms. Search engines come and go, but
as of 2007, here are some of the more popular ones:
Search Tips
- Use two to four main concepts or keywords, for example:
"eating disorders" women
nutrition cancer
- Put quotation marks around phrases, for example:
"child labor" india
nursing "cross cultural studies"
"fight or flight" response
- Read the help file to see if you can use Boolean operators,
plus or minus signs, to require or exclude certain words
or phrases, for example:
"cell phones" +driving
dolphins -football
java -coffee
View
Google's Search Basics
- See if there are advanced search features. For example,
Google Advanced Search lets you specify things such as date,
where your keywords appear in a document, file type and
domain. Being able to limit to non-commercial domains will
help you to find sites that are more likely to be suitable
for academic research.
Types of Domains
| .com |
Commercial web site |
| .edu |
Site on an educational server -- could be
a student or faculty page |
| .gov |
Government site |
| .mil |
Military |
| .net |
Internet service provider |
| .org |
Non-profit organization |
Limiting by Domain in Google
In Google, you can limit by domain in either the Advanced
Search or the Basic Search. In the Basic Search, add word
"site" followed by a colon and the domain, for example:
"eating disorders" women site:edu
"marine mammals" site:gov
In the Advanced Search, enter in the domain in the box to
the right of "Only return results from this site or
domain."
Meta-Search Engines
Another category of search engines are meta-search engines.
Meta-search engines run your search query through several
search engines. They can be useful for very obscure searches,
or to compare results to a single search engine, but there
are drawbacks to using them. Because they combine several
search engines, some of the more complex search features may
be unavailable or discarded. As of this writing, the more
popular meta-search engines include:
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MLA
