About Search Engines

Search engines, directories and portals - what's the difference?

A search engine lets you search on just about any topic imaginable.

A directory is like the index in the Yellow Pages telephone book - you go directly to the category you're interested in. eg About.com (www.about.com)

A portal, as its name suggests, is like a doorway to an enormous amount of information that has been conveniently gathered together in one spot. eg ninemsn (www.ninemsn.com.au/) where you'll find news, real estate info, horoscopes, links to other sites, etc.

Sometimes sites combine all three. An example of an integrated search engine and directory is Yahoo! Australia & NZ (www.yahoo.com.au)

Search engines

A search engine is essentially a database containing the location addresses, titles and content of Internet sites. There are many search engines available, all with different databases, methods of searching, and ways of providing search results.

Most search engines have "help" sections that provide guidance and syntax rules where applicable. For the best results, it is advisable to use different search engines for several reasons:

	their databases differ - the page you might need may not be in all databases;
	they search using different methods - the same keywords will give different returns'
	some specialise in searching certain types or resources, eg Usenet newsgroups; looking for e-mail addresses or for photographs eg, Alta Vista Image Search (http://image.altavista.com/cgi-bin/avncgi), and
	different search syntax will allow you to customise your search in different ways.

Many search engines allow menu configurable search options. A useful starting point is the Netscape Search site, which brings most of the popular search engines together via one Web page.

http://directorysearch.netscape.com

General Search Rules

	The more search keywords (particularly synonyms and related words) you use, the more accurate your search will become.
	Good keyword selection is as much about excluding the irrelevant as it is about including the relevant. Being as specific as possible will yield the best results.
	All search engines provide a text box into which your keywords are typed. a "submit" or "search" button is provided to initiate the search. Often, pressing the "Enter" or "Return" key will also start the search.
	Some search engines use pull down menus or buttons to control aspects of the search, such as language or country

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Specific Search Tips for

"violin flute"	Double quote (") finds as many words/phrases as possible
QuickTime	Capitals in any combination force an exact match
+desert	Plus sign (+) forces a keyword to be present
+desert -sand	Minus (-) eliminates unwanted words
muscle;spasm	Semicolon (;) forces keywords to be treated as a phrase
Geo*	An asterisk (*) acts as a wild card. It allows for spelling variations and alternative words.
image:	Matches documents which contain "images" with keywords in the name
link:	Matches documents which "links" to the specified URL
title:	Matches documents with the desired word(s) in the "title"
url:	Matches documents with the desired word(s) in the "URL"

Advanced Search

Simple search syntax may be used with the following operators.

cat AND dog	Forces words separated by AND to be present ("&" may be used instead)
cat OR dog	At least one word separated by OR must be present
cat NEAR dog	Keywords must be within 10 words of each other ("~" may be used instead)
cat NOT domestic	NOT excludes words from a search ("!" may be used instead)
cat AND ((hat) OR (mat))	Parentheses ( ) are used to group syntax

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Search Tips for

+desert	Plus sign (+) forces a keyword to be present
+desert -sand	Minus (-) eliminates unwanted keywords
cat AND dog	Forces words separated by AND to be present ("&" may be used instead)
cat OR dog	At least one word separated by OR must be present
cat AND NOT domestic	A word following AND NOT will be excluded from a search
cat AND ((hat) OR (mat))	Parentheses ( ) are used to group syntax

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Search Tips for

Australia	Capitalisation forces a case-sensitive match
"secondary education"	Double quotes (") identifies phrases
secondary-education	Hyphenation (-) can also be used to identify phrases
Jane Smith	Adjacent capitalised words are treated as phrases
Smith, Jones	Put a comma (,) between unrelated proper names
+toxic waste	Plus (+) in front of a required word or phrase
waste -toxic	Minus (-) in front of an undesired word or phrase
[atom electron]	Use brackets [ ] to find keywords within 100 words of each other

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Search Tips for

Science.	Full stop (.) forces an exact match
Sci$	dollar sign ($) increases the score of matching contents
waste -toxic	Minus (-) in front of an undesired word decreases its relevance

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Search Tips for

cat AND dog	Forces words separated by AND to be present ("&" may be used instead)
cat OR dog	At least one word separated by OR must be present
cat NEAR dog	Keywords must be within 10 words of each other ("~" may be used instead)
cat NOT domestic	NOT excludes words from a search ("!" may be used instead)
cat AND ((hat) OR (mat))	Parentheses ( ) are used to group syntax
Guard ADJ dog	ADJ forces keywords to be adjacent to one another in the document
"raining cats and dogs"	Double quote (") causes a match of the entire phrase

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Search Tips for Metacrawler

+toxic waste	Plus (+) in front of a required word or phrase
waste -toxic	Minus (-) in front of an undesired word or phrase
(alternative energy)	Parentheses ( ) treat keywords as a phrase

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Search Tips for Magellan

+toxic waste	Plus (+) forces an exact match to the desired keyword
waste -toxic	Minus (-) in front of an undesired word or phrase excludes it from the search