IR1Understand+Internet+Search+Tools





=**Internet Research 1: Understanding Internet Search Tools**=


 * Aim:** What are the four different kinds of Internet search tools?


 * Objectives:**

Students will be able to identify different search tools: search engines, metasearch engines, specialized search engines (databases and directories), and social media search engines


 * Vocabulary:**


 * search engines
 * Keywords
 * spider
 * metasearch engine
 * specialized search engine
 * deep Web
 * social media search engine
 * proprietary database
 * specialty directory
 * social media platforms
 * blog
 * microblog
 * invisible Web
 * visible Web


 * **Search engines:** enable you to locate Web pages that contain the subject you are searching for using **keywords**. **Keywords** are the nouns and verbs, and sometimes important adjectives that describe your search topic. A program called a **spider** scans the Web to index the keywords found on Web pages. When you enter **keywords** in a **search engine**, the **search engine's** index matches your **keywords** to the pages that contain those **keywords**.


 * **Metasearch engines:** search multiple **search engines** at once. As with **search engines**, you enter **keywords** in a search box and results matching your **keywords** appear in your results list. Search results are compiled from other **search engines**, rather than from the Web. The purpose of using a **metasearch engine** is that they provide you quickly with the highest ranked results from multiple **search engines.** Some **metasearch engines** also remove duplicate results and rank the results based on relevancy to your **search query.** However, some **metasearch engines** do not provide results from the best **search engines** because the **search engines** charge a fee, and the **metasearch engine** companies do not want to pay these fees.


 * **Specialized search engines** search the **invisible Web**, also known as the **deep Web.** It is called the **invisible Web** because the information contained in these **specialized search engines** are "invisible" to **search engines**. The information is stored in **proprietary databases**, **specialty directories** such as DMOZ, or reference sites. In fact, most of the information on the Web is "invisible" to **search engines** because these tools require a fee to access the information they contain.


 * **Social media search engines** allow you to search **social media platforms** such as blogs, microblogs such as Twitter, social networks, video and photosharing sites, social news sites, and Q&A sites.


 * Class Activity 1:**

1. **Social Mention** and **Topsy** are **social media search engines** that allow you to search sites such as Twitter. Go to Social Mention and Topsy and Social Searcher and perform a search on any keyword of your choosing. If you use Twitter, try searching your own name. If you do not use any social media sites, search for another topic.

2. What did you decide to search?

3. Now perform the same search in a **search engine** such as Google or Yahoo! or Bing, and then in a **metasearch engine** such as Yippy, Mamma, Dogpile, Ixquick, Webcrawler, Metacrawler, Monstercrawler or any other **metasearch engine** you've already learned about.

4. How do the results compare? Did the **search engines** and **metasearch engines** you used return the same results as the **social media search engines** you used?


 * Class Activity 2:**

1. You are going to use a **proprietary database** called //SIRS// (//Social Issues Research Series//).


 * username:** csi
 * password:** csi

2. You are going to search on a social issue in this **database**. Then you are to search the same social issue in a **search engine** of your choosing, a **metasearch engine** of your choosing, and a **social media search engine** of your choosing.

3. What was your topic? Take one or more of the results from a newspaper or magazine article that you found and try to find the same articles on Google or Bing or Yahoo! Were you successful finding the same exact articles?

4. How do the results compare? Were you able to find the same information you found on the "invisible Web" as you were on the "visible" Web?


 * Aditional Web sites:**

@http://searchenginewatch.com

@http://searchengineshowdown.com

@http://www.socialmention.com/

@http://www.social-searcher.com/

@http://topsy.com/