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| Probably today's most
popular search tool, Google's appeal derives from its huge index,
powerful search engine, and proprietary system for assigning relevance to hits. Its PageRank™
software relies on the web's link structure to indicate a page's
value. The more a page is "linked to," the more valuable
Google considers it (that is, every time someone links to a page, that
link is considered a vote for that page, under the assumption that
someone would only link to pages they considered credible).
But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes (or links), a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query. It's quite something.
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| FAST (and its online search engine,
"All The Web," www.alltheweb.com)
excels in providing correct answers with the first result, in retrieving
current information, in being easy to use (but also in having advanced
features for persons who want them), and it returns few dead links.
Founded in 1997 by scientists from Norway's leading technical
university, the Norwegian Institute of Technology, FAST has become one
of the leading suppliers of search technology. Its engine powers
LookSmart, Lycos, Reed Elsevier, and many others.
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| HotBot | A metasearch engine, HotBot was originally ground-breaking in the depth of its database and the power of its searching. It possibly has received more awards that any other search engine. Its advanced search features are still among the best, allowing you to narrow your search by language, date, domain, media type, page depth, and more. It is especially strong for searching by country and for serving the Spanish language community. It is also the best metasearch site for business, product, and technology searches, but its results are not as relevant as those of pure search engines and its currency has fallen behind. | |
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| Two sites for learning about searching and improving your searching technique are: | ||
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Search.Com Search.Com groups your results according to type of information. For example, if you do a search on earthquakes, you'll see links to the earthquake category pages found on human-built Web guides like Yahoo! and Snap under the heading "Directories," earthquake sites under "Web Pages," earthquake news under "Headlines," and prices on earthquake books, videos, and other products under "Latest Prices." You can sort your results by source, relevance, or date.
Search Engine
Watch
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| A service of the Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries, New Orleans. |
We welcome your comments. |
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Sunday, August 07, 2005