Script describing how to use search engines

1. Created by Collette Knight 2/20/11
Basic Tutorial: Search Engines
Aspen: Mom, I have to do an assignment and my teacher said that I have to search on the
internet, but I’m stuck at the beginning. What are search engines?
Me: Aspen, search engines are large databases of web pages. Users type in a key word, phrase,
or quote and the search engine has electronic spiders or robots that scan an index(es) of web sites
for what the user typed .
Aspen: How come when I search I get a bunch of stuff that wasn’t what I was looking for?
Me: One of the cons to a search engine is that it looks for the key word or phrase and returns
sites that contain that word or phrase just one time. Most search engines will list the most
relevant results, those where the phrase or word is used multiple times, first and the less relevant
ones will be listed further in the results.
Aspen: What’s the difference between a search engine like Google and one like Dogpile?
Me: There are two types of search engines: individual and meta. A search engine like Google is
called an individual search engine where it just scans its own databases. A search engine like
Dogpile is considered a metasearch engine since it scans a number of individual search engines
at the same time and returns results from those search engines.
Aspen: Mom, sometimes when I search on Google it doesn’t return anything useful. What
should I do?
Me: Try using a metasearch engine like Dogpile. Not only is it fast, but it may return many
more results since it scans multiple search engines at once. One thing to be aware of when using
a metasearch engine is that the results may be returned as a single list or as multiple lists. A

2. Created by Collette Knight 2/20/11
single list will show the results from various search engines and remove the duplicates. A
multiple list will provide a list per search engine and you may see duplicate sites listed.
Aspen: My teacher said something about subject directories. What are those and when would I
use them?
Me: The search engines we talked about before are run by robots or electronic spiders. Subject
databases are maintained by people (editors) who review sites and include them in their
directories based on their own criteria. These directories are smaller than search engines and are
specific to subjects. Some of the subjects are: general, academic, commercial, portals and
vortals. Your teacher may have been referring to an academic directory.
Aspen: Wow, Portals and Vortals! That sounds like something in Star Trek!
Me: Well, it does, doesn’t it? In this case portals and vortals are also types of subject
directories. Portals represent commercial interests and are gateways to the web and may have
email, news, maps and other features. Vortals are vertical portals and are more specific than
portals. Yahoo and MSN are examples of search engines and subject directories.
Aspen: Yahoo and MSN offer both?
Me: Yep, sometimes subject directories partner with search engines and vice versa.
Aspen: Hmmm….well I can see that using a subject directory may be better than a regular
search engine because if the editors are picky, maybe the results will be better. But, one problem
would be if the editors don’t know a website’s been changed and the directory shows pages or
links that don’t exist anymore.

3. Created by Collette Knight 2/20/11
Me: Great analysis Aspen! You’ve summed up the main pro and con to using a subject
directory! Subject directories are kind of like telephone books. You use them for specific
purposes but like anything else on the web, they are not fool proof or 100% accurate, 100% of
the time.
Aspen: There’s a lot more to searching on the web than I thought…
Me: Yep, and there’s more too. We haven’t even talked about gateways and subject-specific
databases.
Aspen: There’s more… (Sigh)
Me: No worries, I’ll make it easy. Remember I mentioned “Vortals”? Well, vortals are subject
specific databases and are dedicated to just one subject. Gateways include vortals but also
include library gateways. Library gateways are a collection of databases and informational sites
that have reviewed and recommended by specialists and librarians. These are used for when you
are doing research or need references for your projects.
Aspen: Wow that sounds like I can search everything on the web!
Me: Well, not exactly. There is something called the “Invisible Web”. These are sites that
search engines are unable to search because these sites may be password protected, or have
other security measures that prevents them being searched.
Aspen: That sounds suspicious…
Me: (Laughing) This “Invisible Web” may represent 60 to 80 percent of Web documents and
materials. These sites may be accessed using library gateways and subject specific databases
because they point directly at them. Like you said before, the quality of the information you get

4. Created by Collette Knight 2/20/11
from using a library gateway or subject specific database will be better than a regular search
engine because this information has been reviewed by specialists.
Aspen: There’s so much stuff on the internet. How do I know what is good information?
Me: Yes, you have to be careful. There is a lot to be found on the internet and sometimes that
information is not accurate even though it may “look” like it is. It’s important that you pay
attention to the web site’s address. These are accepted domains (although you must still be
critical of content): .edu (educational sites), .com (commercial business sites), .gov (U.S.
governmental sites), .mil (U.S. military sites), .net (networks, internet service providers, etc), and
.org (U.S non-profit organizations).
Aspen: I’ve seen some others, Mom, like .biz. Are those okay?
Me: .biz sites are business sites. There are other domains and whether they are okay are not is
dependent on their content. One way of evaluating a website is by looking at who created it or
its publisher.
Aspen: How would I do that?
Me: A reputable website has information that shows you who created the website and provides
information on how to contact that person or organization, including the name, address,
telephone number or email address. It is also important to evaluate the content of the web page.
Aspen: What do you mean by content?
Me: A lot of people think that if it is written on a web site then the information must be
accurate. This is not true. While reading the content, keep in mind that information on web sites
is not reviewed or edited for inaccuracies. Also, the website could be biased and present

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opinions mixed with facts or it could be sponsored by an organization or person who is biased.
Also, look at when the website was last updated. Sometimes websites are not maintained and
contain invalid, old information. And to be honest Aspen, not everyone takes the web seriously
and some can even be mean or dishonest.
Aspen: How come a website a visited last year, is no longer around?
Me: Websites are constantly changing. A website you visited in the past, may have changed, or
will change, or may be deleted. Also sometimes the website owner may relocate the page and
fail to provide a link to the new web address. This is why it’s important to pay attention to date
last updated and whether the site is reputable. Also, if you come across something that is
important, you may want to print it out. That way you have a hard copy of it in case something
changes with the particular website.
Aspen: So how do I go about searching?
Me: Well first ask yourself, “What do I want to do?” To just browse you may want to start with
Yahoo. To look up something more specific, try a larger search engine such as Google. If you
want a lot of material on a subject, try a metasearch engine such as, Dogpile combined with non
web resources.
Aspen: How can I be more specific when I’m searching because sometimes I get results that I
don’t want?
Me: Many search engines automatically but an “And” or “Or” between the terms. If you want
the search engine to not show results for a particular term but include others, you could put a
minus sign right before the term to exclude, for example, “girl sports –tennis”. This will search

6. Created by Collette Knight 2/20/11
for results that involve girl sports but not return any that involve tennis. It also helps to put a +
sign in front of the important terms. But, most importantly, try to be specific and use phrases. If
you put the phrase in quotation marks, the search will look for that phrase exactly as is. It also
helps if you put important words first in the string. Another helpful symbol is the asterisks *.
When used, it will look for spelling variations for a particular term.
Aspen: I heard one of my classmates mention “Boolean” searches. What is that?
Me: Boolean is a logic system that when used produces better search results. It uses words like,
AND, OR, and NOT. When you place AND between terms, your search will be narrowed to
containing both of those words. When you use OR between terms, your search will contain
results that have either word. You can also use NOT, which will return results that have the first
word but NOT the second term. There are also Boolean terms that you can use that have to do
with how close a term is to another. For example, ADJ, means adjacent which means that both
words must appear in the text but in any order.
Aspen: Geez…Boolean sounds complicated!
Me: Once you have the list of Boolean terms and practice using them, it becomes easier and you
may be happier with the search results you get. You can also search by “Field”.
Aspen: I’m almost afraid to ask. What is Field Searching?
Me: A web page is broken up into fields. So the title is a field, the domain is a field, the address
itself is a field and so on. Sometimes search engines will allow you to search for content in a
particular field. This will really provide some great results!
Aspen: Hmm…so how would I search by let’s say, the title?

7. Created by Collette Knight 2/20/11
Me: You would type in, “title: “Alaskan Huskies” for example. This will give you a list of
websites that have Alaskan Huskies in the title. I notice that you search for a lot of images or
pictures. You can also search for a particular image by typing, “IMAGE:justinbeiber.gif”.
Aspen: Aww, mom, Justin Beiber, really…
Me: So Aspen, pop quiz: What do you do if you get too much stuff on a search?
Aspen: Uh, maybe I should try to be more specific?
Me: Good! Now what would you do if you get a tiny bit of results?
Aspen: I think the opposite. I would take a word or two away, or maybe I should try one of
those metasearch engines.
Me: You go, Girl! What happens if you visit a website that you visited previously and it you get
an error message like, “File Not Found”.
Aspen: I think you said that websites change all the time and that I should print stuff I think is
important right?
Me: You’re brilliant! Just keep in mind to be flexible and try not to get frustrated. If searching
one way doesn’t work, try it another way and you are bound to have more success! Love ya,
now go do your homework and stop procrastinating! (Laughing)