Michelle Alonzo Report 3 409a What are Web Search Engines?

Report 3

What are Web Search Engines?

Before going into what search engines really are, what do the words "search engine" sound like they mean? Well, for me, because I had Traffic Psychology the first time I heard those two words used together, I thought it had something to do with a car. You know, I thought it was some kind of device built into the engine that would search for the problem whenever the engine was having problems. So much for that idea!

But now, I know better. In laymen's terms, search engines are like when you go into UH Carl and search into that particular database for books on a particular subject or author. In fact, all the library systems should have these computer terminals which you may go to and type a few words and come up with a whole list of books pertaining to the words that you typed in.

In other words, search engines search the enire internet for the specific words or topics that you want them to search. And some of these search engines have millions of topics in their databases. As Dr. James says, "Alta Vista," one of the largest growing search engines "has so many files that the search demons pick up every month that if you spent a second on each page, it would take you over a whole lifetime to go through the entire list." And it's true! You can type up one word, "Psychology" for example, and you would get thousands of entries waiting for you to view on that subject.
When I first used a search engine, I had no clue as to what to due. I just had to kind of feel my way around and do a trial-and-error type of thing where I would type a few words and, if I didn't like the topics that were picked up, I would have to edit my selections because they were almost always too broad.

For example, I had to search for topics for my database which is entitled " I Can't Stop Driving Over the Speed Limit." So, I typed in "speed" just to see what would come up. When it came back up with the topics that it had found, I couldn't believe how big the number was! Then, I tried to think of another word that would kind of specify what I really wanted. So, I typed in "drive." Wow, that sure helped! I looked through my selections and, usually, the matches that fit your word choices would come up first. Then, the rest would be things that had usually one word or the other, but not all.

Anyways, what came up surprised me. I thought, "Okay, these computers have to be really smart so the first time I try it, it should have a lot of the things that I need, then I can be out of this computer lab and doing other things." Well.....big mistake! There were over a thousand selections that came up. Most of them had to do with computers. And I was wondering how in the world it came up with computers.

Then it hit me, "drive" and "speed" had a lot to do with computers. It gave me things like how fast a computer drive can go and some of the things you can do to make the drive work faster. Eventually I came across some things that had to do with my topic.

But, I learned that you have to be really specific with what you want. If possible, include as many words as possible so that you can get exactly what you want on your first few tries. Also, some of the selections that come up may not have the few words that you typed on the screen because their titles are too long to fit into the two lines that are provided when the selections come up. I learned that you should check each selection, especially at the beginning because although the titles do not sound like they are relevant to your topic, the content may be exactly what you are looking for.

One more piece of advice. If time allows, try a few different search engines, about two or three. Some may have the things that others don't have. Some work by just typing in entries, while others have directories that you can pick from to choose your topics. You can check out a few of the different Search Engines that were previewed in a report done by a student in Generation 2. Check it out because it will definitely help you! And another cite that will help you with search engines is BPL Internet Index -- SEARCHING. I think this one has a more complete overview of search engines and their purposes and funcitons.
A lot of the people, during their first searches, were kind of confused about how the whole "search thing" worked. Understandably so. When you are a computer novice, you have no idea about how anything works. At least, that's how it was for me. But with practice, as Dr. James promotes with his lab activities, you can begin to master the net.

This is what the previous generations have figured out, regardless of whether they liked it or not. One particular team figured out that it can actually be fun to search the net using search engines. In Reynilda Cortez Team Week 2 Report she states, "I am so impressed to see how much information I can get from the Internet." I agree. One thing for sure, is that if you don't try it, you won't know what you are missing.
The two Search Engines that I decided to search were Yahoo and AltaVista. Why these two? Well, these are two different kinds of search engines. Yahoo is more of a directory-like structured search engine, where AltaVista is a word-search engine. Also, Dr. James speaks so highly of Alta Vista, because it has about 10 million pages connected to it, or something like that. But just hearing that in itself motivates me. I think it is really interesting that so many pages are out there in the net. And think of all the interesting and fun topics that we can all connect to.

First, let's take a look at Yahoo. Well, this is a pretty easy search engine to use. I think that this search engine is best if you already know what category or what subject you are planning to search. It's more directory-oriented.

For example, they have a list of topics already highlighted for you. All you have to do is click on one of those and it will bring you to another page that will bring up some hits related to that category. You could also type in a few words in the dialogue box, and that subject will also bring up some hits.

These hits are designed to come up with the best hits at the beginning. One thing though, as with all search engines, you need to be specific about what you are searching for.

For me, I like this search engine mainly because of its name. But, I'm the kind of person that wants things to be just there for me instead of having to look at other things. So, I tried another search engine, although yahoo is a very good search engine, as stated by others in the previous generations.

The second search engine that I used was AltaVista. Just hearing about his search engine is overwhelming to me. All I had to do was type a word, or a couple of words describing what I wanted to search. For example, my very first search on the internet was on Speeding. But at the time, I didn't know how specific you had to be. But the amount of hits that this search engine could give was enormous.

Another good thing about this was that I could just type in any kind of topic and it would bring up so many. But, again, we have to be specific. But even the most specific topics brought about numerous results.

When I did a search on Alta Vista, I punched in two words. "Cyber" and "Psychology." I waited for a while and finally the screen came up saying that there were a large number of hits for "cyber" and an even larger number of hits for "psychology." I noticed that a lot of them were from Dr. James' previous classes.

I also noticed that the hits, if you clicked that you wanted a standard return of the hits, it would show the first few lines of the page under the title of the site. Also, it would have the size of the document and the address of the page. You can just click on the highlighted portion of the hit and it will connect you directly to that site. Pretty cool!

As I clicked on every hit, as it went down, the selections would get more and more general, either having only one of the words or related subjects. I learned that the hits are weighed. The hits with all the words on a site will show up first. Then, they are weighed depending on how many times the words appear together, where in the text the words show up, then it brings the hits that have either one word or the other.

I feel that this is a useful way of showing hits to a requestor because you can, most of the time, find the sites you really need at the beginning, which is very convenient, especially when you are in a rush or are excited to find a particular sight.

Yahoo on the other hand is based on directories. Its home page has a list of directories that you can choose from. It has topic headings and if you click on one, you can search in that particular directory.

I think that the Alta Vista is much more "user-friendly" than Yahoo because it is less complex when trying to figure out exactly how to use it. But, I must admit, Yahoo is good for children because it has "Yahooligans" which is especially for the children. I think Yahoo is much more efficient, though, when you do know what directory to look under, because it only looks under that particular directory that you need instead of bringing you 50 million hits, in which you may fin only one useful one in the first million. At least, in Yahoo, you can find many more relevant hits at the beginning, than you would in Alta Vista.
In doing this report, I learned a lot about search engines. I learned the very minute details that really mad a difference when searching through the internet. I also learned that search engines are very much needed, especially for the internet novice, like many of us are. I think that if we did not have search engines, we would miss so many of the pages out there available to us. Though you need to know the basics for each search engine you try, it will be very helpful in the end.

There is a wealth of information out there in the net just waiting to be learned and the search engines are the key to finding all of this information.

What did I learn about the web? For one thing, I learned that one cannot explore all there is out there in one lifetime. There are so many different types of pages out there that we can explore, yet so little time in which to do it.

I also learned that it could have a negative effect on people, if they are not careful. Some people may spend their whole days and nights in front of the computer, and still choose to use the computer during their spare time just surfing the net. We have to be very careful when this begins to happen to us because it could prove to be detrimental to our social lives. I think that the web has provided many services for everyone and I think that everyone can benefit from it. But, a word of caution: DO NOT REPLACE YOUR SOCIAL LIFE WITH THE WEB!!!

Well, what can I say about the internet? About a year ago, I had no clue of what was on the net. Well, I knew about the e-mail portion of the internet, but never knew the rest of it. Taking Psy 459, 409, and 499 has really helped me top understand what the net really is. Though, I know that I have to learn a lot more about it.

It also has affected my personality somewhat. I tend to avoid pages that take too long to load. Because I know that the links will come up anyway, I tend to quickly press the "stop" button after 30 seconds and just search the links that are on the page. Naughty huh?

I also skip the boring looking pages, regardless of their content. I think that an appealing background and icons really help a page, especially when I'm looking into them. If they look "boring" then I tend to just let it pass over my head. Then the eye-catching ones get all of my attention.

So what does this say about me? I guess that I'm just the kind of person that likes the sites. If I don't like it, I'll either skip it or never go back again. I sometimes dread having to go back to Generation 1 pages because they seem so...........gray! No backgrounds worth looking at! Well, I could be exaggerating just a little bit. But, of course that's to be expected since technology is advancing with time. But I realize that I shouldn't be so bent on what's on the cover. Yes, I've had this lecture many times! It's not what's on the outside that counts. It's what's inside. Okay. Well, maybe I'm being a little (or a lot) superficial, but that's just the way society has made me to become! I'm sure I'm not the only one! Look at what others are saying on their reports!
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