Advanced Search Feature Essay Research Paper Advanced

Advanced Search Feature Essay, Research Paper

Advanced Search FeatureIntroduction to Search Engine Design Search engines are one of the primary ways that Internet users find web sites. That & # 8217 ; s why a web site with a good hunt engine listing may see a dramatic addition in traffic. Everyone wants that good listing. Unfortunately, many web sites appear ill in hunt engine rankings or may non be listed at all because they fail to see how hunt engines work. Knowledge of & # 8220 ; hunt engine design & # 8221 ; can assist many of these sites. Search engine design means guaranting that your web pages are accessible to seek engines and focused in ways that help better the opportunities they will be found. A Webmaster & # 8217 ; s Guide to Search Engines provides tips, techniques and a good foundation in the rudimentss of hunt engine design. By utilizing this information where appropriate, you may tap into visitants who antecedently missed your site. The usher is non a primer on ways to spam or flim-flam the hunt engines. In fact, there aren & # 8217 ; t & # 8220 ; search engine secrets & # 8221 ; that will vouch a top listing. But there are a figure of little alterations you can do that can sometimes bring forth large results.The Major Search Engines Which of the many hunt engines truly count? Normally, it & # 8217 ; s the hunt engines that are well-known and well-used. This is true whether you are a webmaster or a seeker. For webmasters, a good listing in a hunt engine that promotes itself good, or has strong strategic confederations, is more likely to convey traffic than a lesser-known hunt engine. For illustration, a hunt engine listed on the Netscape Net Search page is guaranteed to have much usage. That translates into more traffic for sites that are ranked good by these hunt engines. For seekers, well-known, commercially-backed hunt engines by and large mean more reliable consequences. These hunt engines are more likely to be well-maintained and upgraded when necessary, to maintain gait with the turning web. Search Engines, Directories and Hybrids Before calling names, it & # 8217 ; s of import to explicate the difference between hunt engines and directories. They are frequently confused. A more elaborate account can besides be found on the How Search Engines Work page, and site endorsers have entree to even more elaborate information about how some of the hunt engines listed here operate. Search Engines: Besides called & # 8220 ; spiders & # 8221 ; or & # 8220 ; sycophants, & # 8221 ; hunt engines invariably visit web sites on the Internet in order to make catalogs of web pages. Because they run automatically and index so many web pages, hunt engines may frequently happen information non listed in directories. Directories: Unlike hunt engines, directories are created by worlds. Sites must be submitted, so they are assigned to an appropriate class or classs. Because of the human function, directories can frequently supply better consequences than search engines. Yahoo is an illustration of a directory. Hybrid Search Engines: To foster confuse affairs, some hunt engines besides have an associated directory. These are sites that have been reviewed or rated. For the most portion, these reviewed sites do non look as the & # 8220 ; default & # 8221 ; when a question is made to a intercrossed hunt engine. Alternatively, a user must consciously take to see the reappraisals. The Major Players Below are the current major participants in the hunt engine game. The Strategic Alliances page explains in item the methods in finding which hunt engines are considered major participants. Yahoo and some others, though non true hunt engines, are listed below because so many people use them. Some extra hunt services are besides listed on the Other Search Services page. Search Engine Watch besides maintains a list of metacrawlers, which let you seek more than one hunt engine at a clip, plus lists of forte hunt engines, regional ushers and other hunt services such as those designed for kids. See the Guide To Search Engines subdivision on the Search Engine Facts page for a complete listing. Does the universe semen to an terminal if your site can & # 8217 ; t be found easy in any of these & # 8220 ; major & # 8221 ; hunt engines? Not needfully. If you want to make apple husbandmans, so acquiring a nexus to your site from an vague apple-farming web site may convey in much more meaningful traffic than by being indexed by all the general hunt engines in the universe. AltaVista hypertext transfer protocol: //www.altavista.com/ AltaVista is systematically one of the largest hunt engines on the web, in footings of pages indexed. Its comprehensive coverage and broad scope of power seeking bids makes it a peculiar favourite among research workers. It besides offers a figure of characteristics designed to appeal to basic users, such as & # 8220 ; Ask AltaVista & # 8221 ; consequences, which come from Ask Jeeves ( see below ) , and directory listings from LookSmart. AltaVista opened in December 1995. It was owned by Digital, and now is run by Compaq, which purchased Digital in 1998. See besides: AltaVista Debuts Search Features The Search Engine Report, November 4, 1998 Ask Jeeves hypertext transfer protocol: //www.askjeeves.com/ Ask Jeeves is a human-powered hunt service that aims to direct you to the exact page that answers your inquiry. If it fails to happen a lucifer within its ain database, so it will supply fiting web pages from assorted hunt engines. The service went into beta in mid-April 1997 and opened to the full on June 1, 1997. Consequences from Ask Jeeves besides appear within AltaVista. See besides: Ask Jeeves: Asking Questions To Give You Answers The Search Engine Report, November 4, 1998 AOL NetFind hypertext transfer protocol: //www.aol.com/netfind/ AOL NetFind is a branded-version of the Excite hunt engine in the US and Canada. It has a different name and a different expression, but it is fundamentally Excite underneath. In Europe, Lycos provides the consequences in the same mode as Excite. AOL NetFind launched in March 1997. Direct Hit hypertext transfer protocol: //www.directhit.com/ Direct Hit is a company that works with other hunt engines to polish their consequences. It does this by supervising what users click on from the consequences they see. Sites that get clicked on more than others rise higher in Direct Hit & # 8217 ; s rankings. Therefore, the service dubs itself a & # 8220 ; popularity engine. & # 8221 ; Direct Hit & # 8217 ; s engineering is presently best seen at HotBot. See besides: Count Chinks and Looking at Links The Search Engine Report, August 4, 1998 Excite hypertext transfer protocol: //www.excite.com/ Excite is one of the most popular hunt services on the web. It offers a moderate-sized index and integrates non-web stuff such as company information and athleticss tonss into its consequences, when appropriate. It besides offers one of the best intelligence hunt services available: Excite NewsTracker. Excite was launched in late 1995. It grew rapidly in prominence and consumed two of its rivals, Magellan in July 1996, and WebCrawler in November 1996. These continue to run as separate services. Excite besides & # 8220 ; powers & # 8221 ; the consequences that appear in AOL NetFind and Netscape Search. See besides: Excite Enhances Search Results The Search Engine Report, June 3, 1998 Go hypertext transfer protocol: //beta.go.com/ Go is a portal site produced by Infoseek and Disney. It offers portal characteristics such as personalization and free electronic mail, plus the hunt capablenesss of Infoseek. It launched in beta signifier in December 1998. It is non related to GoTo, below. See besides: Travel Arrives from Disney and Infoseek The Search Engine Report, Jan. 5, 1999 Google hypertext transfer protocol: //www.google.com/ Google is a hunt engine that makes heavy usage of nexus popularity as a primary manner to rank web sites. This can be particularly helpful in happening good sites in response to general hunts such as & # 8220 ; autos & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; travel, & # 8221 ; because users across the web have in kernel voted for good sites by associating to them. See besides: Count Chinks and Looking at Links The Search Engine Report, August 4, 1998 GoTo hypertext transfer protocol: //www.goto.com/ GoTo is the lone major hunt engine with sells listings. Companies can pay money to be placed higher in the hunt consequences, which GoTo feels improves relevance. Learn more about this theoretical account via the article below. Non-paid consequences come from Inktomi. GoTo launched in launched in 1997 and incorporated the former University of Colorado-based World Wide Web Worm. In February 1998, it shifted to its current pay-for-placement theoretical account and shortly after replaced the WWW Worm with Inktomi for its non-paid listings. GoTo is non related to Go, supra. See besides: GoTo Going Strong The Search Engine Report, July 1, 1998 GoTo Sells Positions The Search Engine Report, March 3, 1998 HotBot hypertext transfer protocol: //www.hotbot.com/ Like AltaVista, HotBot is another favourite among research workers due to its big index of the web and many power seeking characteristics. HotBot is powered by the Inktomi hunt engine, which is besides used by other services. It has a partnership with LookSmart for its directory listings. HotBot launched in May 1996 as Wired Digital & # 8217 ; s entry into the hunt engine market. Lycos purchased Wired Digital in October 1998 and continues to run HotBot as a separate hunt service. See besides: HotBot Emphasizes The Human The Search Engine Report, October 5, 1998 Inktomi hypertext transfer protocol: //www.inktomi.com/ Originally, there was an Inktomi hunt engine at UC Berkeley. The Godheads so formed their ain company with the same name and created a new Inktomi index, which was foremost used to power HotBot. Now the Inktomi index besides powers several other services. All of them tap into the same index, though consequences may be somewhat different. This is because Inktomi provides ways for its spouses to utilize a common index yet distinguish themselves. There is no manner to question the Inktomi index straight, as it is merely made available through Inktomi & # 8217 ; s spouses with whatever filters and ranking pinchs they may use. See besides: Microsoft Unveils MSN Search The Search Engine Report, October 5, 1998 Infoseek hypertext transfer protocol: //www.infoseek.com/ Infoseek is one of the more popular hunt services on the web. It has a small-to-medium sized index, so it may non be the best topographic point for those making a comprehensive hunt of the web. However, it systematically provides quality consequences in response to many general and wide hunts, thanks to its ESP hunt algorithm. It besides has an impressive human-compiled directory of web sites. Infoseek is the chief power behind the new Go portal site, which it produces in partnership with Disney. Infoseek launched in early 1995. See besides: Infoseek Reorganizes Listings The Search Engine Report, October 5, 1998 LookSmart hypertext transfer protocol: //www.looksmart.com/ LookSmart is the closest rival Yahoo has, in footings of being a human-compiled directory of the web. In add-on to being a stand-alone service, LookSmart provides directory consequences to both AltaVista and HotBot. AltaVista provides LookSmart with hunt consequences when a hunt fails to happen a lucifer from among LookSmart & # 8217 ; s reappraisals. LookSmart launched independently in October 1996, was backed by Reader & # 8217 ; s Digest for about a twelvemonth, and so company executives bought back control in the service. See besides: LookSmart Launches Local Search, Plans Directory Expansion The Search Engine Report, Jan. 5, 1999 LookSmart and Snap Challenge Yahoo The Search Engine Report, June 6, 1998 Lycos hypertext transfer protocol: //www.lycos.com/ Lycos is one of the more popular hunt services, despite holding a little index that is more outdated than its rivals. While its hunt engine listings are weak, Lycos does have an impressive directory of web sites called Lycos Community Guides. Sites are automatically listed in these ushers utilizing engineering from WiseWire, a company Lycos acquired in early 1998. Lycos is one of the oldest of the major hunt engines, around since May 1994. It began as a undertaking at Carnegie Mellon University. The name Lycos comes from the Latin for & # 8220 ; wolf spider. & # 8221 ; In Octobe

r 1998, Lycos acquired the competing HotBot search service, which continues to be run separately. See also: Lycos Buys Wired, Gets Facelift The Search Engine Report, November 4, 1998 MSN (Microsoft) http://www.msn.com/ Microsoft’s MSN service features both directory listings and search engine results, powered by Inktomi. Other search engines are also featured at the service. The service went live in October 1998 with its Inktomi results, although it had existed in various formats and under different names previously. See also: Microsoft Unveils MSN Search The Search Engine Report, October 5, 1998 Netscape (including Netscape Open Directory / NewHoo) http://www.netscape.com/ Like AOL NetFind, Netscape Search is a branded version of the Excite search engine. Netscape also runs the Netscape Open Directory, formerly known as NewHoo. This directory depends on volunteer editors to categorize web sites. Netscape also features an option to search with other search engines from its site. Netscape relaunced itself as a portal site with search offerings in Spring 1998. Now owned by AOL, the Netscape site is expected to continue operating as a separate service. See also: NewHoo Becomes Netscape Open Directory The Search Engine Report, December 3, 1998 Northern Light http://www.northernlight.com/ or http://www.nlsearch.com/ Northern Light is another favorite search engine among researchers. It features a large index, along with the ability to cluster documents by topic. Northern Light also has a set of “special collection” documents that are not readily accessible to search engine spiders. There are documents from thousands of sources, including newswires, magazines and databases. Searching these documents is free, but there is a charge of up to $4 to view them. There is no charge to view documents on the public web — only for those within the special collection. Northern Light opened to general use in August 1997. See also: Northern Light Adds Search Functions, Freshens Index The Search Engine Report, August 4, 1998 Northern Light’s Custom Search Folders The Search Engine Report, September 3, 1997 Search.com http://www.search.com/ Search.com is a branded-version of the Infoseek search engine, operated by Cnet. It also offers specialty searches, where Infoseek technology is used to spider selected sites within particular categories. Search.com also provides links to a variety of specialty search services. Search.com was launched in March 1996 as an single interface to several search engines. The partnership with Infoseek began in May 1997. Since late 1997, Search.com has been eclipsed by Cnet’s new search offering, Snap (see below). Snap http://www.snap.com/ Snap is a human-compiled directory of web sites, supplemented by search results from Inktomi. Like LookSmart, it aims to challenge Yahoo as the champion of categorizing the web. Snap launched in late 1997 and is backed by Cnet and NBC. See also: LookSmart and Snap Challenge Yahoo The Search Engine Report, June 6, 1998 WebCrawler http://www.webcrawler.com/ WebCrawler has the smallest index of any major search engine on the web — think of it as Excite Lite. The small index means WebCrawler is not the place to go when seeking obscure or unusual material. However, some people may feel that by having indexed fewer pages, WebCrawler provides less overwhelming results in response to general searches. WebCrawler opened to the public on April 20, 1994. It was started as a research project at the University of Washington. America Online purchased it in March 1995 and was the online service’s preferred search engine until Nov. 1996. That was when Excite, a WebCrawler competitor, acquired the service. Excite continues to run WebCrawler as an independent search engine. Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com/ Yahoo is the web’s most popular search service and has a well-deserved reputation for helping people find information easily. The secret to Yahoo’s success is human beings. It is the largest human-compiled guide to the web, employing 80 or more editors in an effort to categorize the web. Yahoo has at least 1 million sites listed. Yahoo also supplements its results with those from Inktomi. If a search fails to find a match within Yahoo’s own listings, then matches from Inktomi are displayed. Inktomi matches also appear after all Yahoo matches have first been shown. Yahoo is the oldest major web site directory, having launched in late 1994.How Search Engines Work The term “search engine” is often used generically to describe both true search engines and directories. They are not the same. The difference is how listings are compiled. Search Engines Vs. Directories Search Engines: Search engines, such as HotBot, create their listings automatically. Search engines crawl the web, then people search through what they have found. If you change your web pages, search engines eventually find these changes, and that can affect how you are listed. Page titles, body copy and other elements all play a role. Directories: A directory such as Yahoo depends on humans for its listings. You submit a short description to the directory for your entire site, or editors write one for sites they review. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted. Changing your web pages has no effect on your listing. Things that are useful for improving a listing with a search engine have nothing to do with improving a listing in a directory. The only exception is that a good site, with good content, might be more likely to get reviewed than a poor site. Hybrid Search Engines: Some search engines maintain an associated directory. Being included in a search engine’s directory is usually a combination of luck and quality. Sometimes you can “submit” your site for review, but there is no guarantee that it will be included. Reviewers often keep an eye on sites submitted to announcement places, then choose to add those that look appealing. The Parts Of A Search Engine Search engines have three major elements. First is the spider, also called the crawler. The spider visits a web page, reads it, and then follows links to other pages within the site. This is what it means when someone refers to a site being “spidered” or “crawled.” The spider returns to the site on a regular basis, such as every month or two, to look for changes. Everything the spider finds goes into the second part of a search engine, the index. The index, sometimes called the catalog, is like a giant book containing a copy of every web page that the spider finds. If a web page changes, then this book is updated new information. Sometimes it can take a while for new pages or changes that the spider finds to be added to the index. Thus, a web page may have been “spidered” but not yet “indexed.” Until it is indexed — added to the index — it is not available to those searching with the search engine. Search engine software is the third part of a search engine. This is the program that sifts through the millions of pages recorded in the index to find matches to a search and rank them in order of what it believes is most relevant. You can learn more about how search engine software ranks web pages on the aptly-named How Search Engines Rank Web Pages page. Major Search Engines: The Same, But Different All search engines have the basic parts described above, but there are differences in how these parts are tuned. That is why the same search on different search engines often produces different results. Some of the significant differences between the major search engines are described in two main areas of this guide: Search Engine Features Page: Information on this page has been drawn from the help pages of each search engine, along with knowledge gained from articles, reviews, books, independent research, tips from others and additional information received from directly from the various search engines. Subscribers-Only Area: More in-depth information is available to site subscribers, including: How Alta Vista Works How AOL NetFind Works How Excite Works How HotBot Works How Infoseek Works How Lycos Works How Search.com Works How WebCrawler Works How Yahoo Works How Other Search Engines WorkHow Search Engines Rank Web Pages Search for anything using your favorite search engine. Nearly instantly, the search engine will sort through the millions of pages it knows about and present you with ones that match your topic. The matches will even be ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first. Of course, the search engines don’t always get it right. Non-relevant pages make it through, and sometimes it may take a little more digging to find what you are looking for. But by and large, search engines do an amazing job. As WebCrawler founder Brian Pinkerton puts it, “Imagine walking up to a librarian and saying, ‘travel.’ They’re going to look at you with a blank face.” Unlike a librarian, search engines don’t have the ability to ask a few questions to focus the search. They also can’t rely on judgment and past experience to rank web pages, in the way humans can. Intelligent agents are moving in this direction, but there’s a long way to go. So how do search engines go about determining relevancy? They follow a set of rules, with the main rules involving the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Call it the location/frequency method, for short. Location, Location, Location…and Frequency Remember the librarian mentioned above? They need to find books to match your request of “travel,” so it makes sense that they first look at books with travel in the title. Search engines operate the same way. Pages with keywords appearing in the title are assumed to be more relevant than others to the topic. Search engines will also check to see if the keywords appear near the top of a web page, such as in the headline or in the first few paragraphs of text. They assume that any page relevant to the topic will mention those words right from the beginning. Frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other web pages. Spice In The Recipe Now its time to qualify the location/frequency method described above. All the major search engines follow it to some degree, in the same way cooks may follow a standard chili recipe. But cooks like to add their own secret ingredients. In the same way, search engines add spice to the location/frequency method. Nobody does it exactly the same, which is one reason why the same search on different search engines produces different results. To begin with, some search engines index more web pages than others. Some search engines also index web pages more often than others. The result is that no search engine has the exact same collection of web pages to search through. Search engines may also give web pages a “boost” for certain reasons. For example, Excite uses link popularity as part of its ranking method. It can tell which of the pages in its index have a lot of links pointing at them. These pages are given a slight boost during ranking, since a page with many links to it is probably well-regarded on the Internet. Some hybrid search engines, those with associated directories, may give a relevancy boost to sites they’ve reviewed. The logic is that if the site was good enough to earn a review, chances are it’s more relevant than an unreviewed site. Meta tags are what many web designers mistakenly assume are the “secret” to propelling their web pages to the top of the