Engines help need for speed
Sun Review Oct.9, 1999

Search engines are websites that allow you to perform a search of the Internet using specified keywords, dates, or other parameters, and return your search results in the form of webpages that match your search criteria. Search engines can be divided into 3 types: Directories or indexes of websites, such as Yahoo, true search engines such as Alta Vista and Hotbot, and meta search engines such as Dogpile and Metacrawler.

Most search engines catalog webpages based on the keywords they find in the title of the webpage, the text displayed on the webpage and the META tags, which are hidden in the programming of the webpage. If you have your own website and would like to ensure it ranks highly in the search engines, you must make sure you have these three elements present on every page of your website.

The next step is letting the search engines know about your website. There are many online services available that help you promote your website to search engines (e.g. www.submitit.com, www.addme.com, www.webposition.com) but you can also do this yourself. Simply visit each search engine, look for a link called "Add URL", "Suggest A Page" or "Add my Page", and fill out the requested information. This process is simple and usually free of charge, but be warned: it can be very time-consuming!

How Do Search Engines Catalog Websites?
The directory-style search engine works on the basis of submissions: you must submit or add your website to the directory. The directory usually has a staff which will review the website and place it into the directory accordingly. But beware! This process can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months, and there is also a chance that the website is not accepted for inclusion in the directory.

The true search engines operate robots or spiders, which are tiny programs that follow links or crawl through the Web and catalog all the websites they encounter along the way. Most search engines such as Alta Vista also take submissions so you can manually add your website to their index. These types of search engines have a larger index of websites, but there is also a good chance that many of these sites either do not exist any longer or have been moved.

Meta search engines use multiple search engines at the same time to perform your search. This is powersearching at its best! Some examples of meta search engines are Northern Light, Dogpile and Metacrawler.

Using Search Engines Effectively - How to Find Stuff on the Net
Have you found yourself floundering in cyberspace, searching for that ultimate cookie dough recipe? Well, flounder no longer! Here are some handy tips to help you search the vast expanse of the Internet more effectively:

  1. Choose the right type of search engine for your search. Not all search engines are created equal. For example, some websites like Yahoo are simply website directories. Yahoo decides which websites will be added to their directory and under which category the website will fit. This means that any given website must be submitted to Yahoo for review, and may take anywhere from several weeks to 4 or 5 months to even appear in the directory. True search engines such as Alta Vista or HotBot search the web constantly for new websites, and will most likely have the largest index of individual webpages.
  2. Learn how to use your favourite search engine. Every search engine has a help file, or powersearching advice. And yes, reading the manual is a good idea. Learn perform a more advanced search. Many search engines use simple characters to add functionality and narrow down your search.

For example, searching for the words danish blue cheese will return webpages that have the word danish, or the word blue, or the word cheese (but not necessarily all of these words or in that order).

Now if you add a plus symbol (+) directly in front of each word, you are requiring all of those words to be in your search results. Typing in +danish +blue +cheese means that you should only get webpages that have all of the words "danish", "blue" and "cheese" (although not necessarily in that order or even close together).

Now take this search one step further: Search for "danish blue cheese" as a phrase. All you have to do is enclose your search terms with quotes (i.e. type in "danish blue cheese"). Now the search engine performs a search for any webpages with the entire phrase "danish blue cheese".

And if you're lazy like me, or simply don't have the time to visit several search engines to find what you're looking for, why not try a META search engine? Meta search engines perform a search using multiple search engines at the same time. So now you're powersearching seven or more search engines at the click of a button! What am improvement! Many people seem to think Dogpile is a great example, but I think Metacrawler is a hidden jewel. Metacrawler surveys 7 search engines, collates and organizes the search results for you in a logical fashion, and lets you specify exactly how many results you want to see. The search results obtained with Metacrawler are almost always more up-to-date and relevant. Try it and see for yourself!

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