Internet Search Facilities

For UIR lab on Friday (9th May 2008) we were told to complete practical 4-5. practical 4-5 is about internet search facilities. In simpler, we were taught to use various search engines available on the internet. For example MetaCrawler, Google, Yahoo and Yahoo directory. I find that lab session conducted on Friday really benefit me!

Now, let me share with you! An effective and efficient way of finding research. I guarantee it really works! Well, I mean at least it works for me :) Alright… for instance, I’m searching for information regarding the impact of drug abuse on youth.

Search engine: Google
This is what I’ve type in: impact of drug abuse on youth
Figure 1


And for another one, different keywords
This is what I’ve type in this time: (impact OR effect) AND (drug AND abuse) AND (teenagers OR Youth)
Figure 2


If you were to look at the list of results given clear enough, you may actually notice that though Figure 1 there is less result shown (648,000) however, the result given wasn’t exactly the ones which I’m looking for. Whereas, on the other hand, Figure 2 shown (790,000) result found. However, the precise information which I wanted was there. The secrets of the effective way of finding research are using keywords variation and using operators such as (OR / AND .. etc).


What do I mean by keywords variation? This is somehow similar using thesaurus. For example: if you keyword is abuse, that will make your keywords variation misuse or etc.
Or impact = effect
Or teenagers = youngsters

Google VS Yahoo VS metaCrawler
(Similarities and Differences)

metaCrawler
Capability: search results include result from various search engines such as Google, Msn, Yahoo and Ask.com
Size of hits: 54


Google
Capability: search result gives a list of information (include some irrelevant information)
Size of hit: 790, 000

Yahoo Directory
Capability: search result gives a list of information (include much more irrelevant information)
Size of hit: 175

Overall, I still prefer Google as my search engine. For I’m more familiar to it. Plus it really provides me with much more relevant information as compared to the rest of the 2 search engines.