Search Engines
Directly to SEARCH ENGINES

Evaluating Internet Resources

1.   Purpose

• Who created the web site, and who was it made to attract, based on its content, tone and style?
• Where is the information on the web site gathered from, and does it meet your research needs?

2.   Source

• Who is the creator and do they have the expertise on the subject? This information should be available as credentials usually given at the bottom of the page, or on a separate credentials page.
• Look for the following identifiers in the URL:
                .edu for educational or research sites
                .gov for governmental resource sites
                .com and/or .org for commercial products or commercially-sponsored sites and organizations
• NAME in URL may mean a personal home page with no official sanction

3.   Content

• Accuracy - don't take information presented at face value. Web sites are rarely refereed or reviewed, as are scholarly journals and books. Stay with the .edu and .gov sites for valid materials .
• Look for point of view and evidence of bias. Sites that are .org and .com are often biased.
• Currency is important. You want the material on a web site to be up to date, as reflected by the date (usually at the   bottom of the page) the page was last updated.
• Links should be relevant and appropriate. Don't assume that the linked sites are the best or only sites available. Again keep with .edu and .org web sites, as the links from these pages are almost always great!

4.   Style

• Site should be laid out clearly and logically with well organized subsections.
• Writing is clear and appropriate, and site is easy to navigate.
• Links all work.

Consider clicking here to take advantage of the web sites that have already been evaluated for validity and accuracy by the librarian and faculty at Marple Newtown High School.

Valid Web Sites

Basic Boolean Logic

The internet is an ever-expanding resource. Currently there are tens of millions of sites with little or no bibliographic control. Under these conditions, find even the most common bit of information is difficult. To facilitate conducting research on the web, three different modes have been developed [to date]: search engines, subject guides and metasearch sites.

To utilize any of these tools to their fullest advantage, the user should be familiar with the operators found in Boolean Logic: AND, OR, NOT. For example:

AND    will provide results where both search terms occur - less hits but more precise
OR       will provide results where either search terms occurs - more hits but less precise
NOT     will provide results where the negative term does not occWho prur - makes a search more precise

For a fuller, graphic representation of boolean operators follow this link.

Crawler-type Search Engines:
Search engines do keyword searches against a database, but various factors influence the results from each: size of the database, frequency of update, search capability and design, and speed.

AllTheWeb - An excellent crawler-based search engine, All The Web provides both comprehensive coverage of the web and outstanding relevancy. If you tried Google and didn't find it, All The Web should probably be next on your list

Google - General web database with excellent ranking. Boolean AND is always assumed; OR is not an available operator. Results are posted based upon popularity -- this is measured by the number of links to it from other pages: high rank if a lot of other pages link to it.

HotBot - HotBot provides easy access to the web's four major crawler-based search engines: AllTheWeb.com/FAST, Google, Inktomi and Teoma. Unlike a meta search engine, it cannot blend the results from all of these crawlers together. Nevertheless, it's a fast, easy way to get different web search "opinions" in one place.

Infoseek - searches the Web, Infoseek Select sites, Usenet newsgroups, company directory, and timely news. No boolean operators. Annotated results are returned in order of decreasing relevance. Some results include a list of related topics and news groups.

Subject Directories/Guides:
Subject guides are great for browsing general topics, but are not so great when looking for in-depth information.

Britannica Web's Best - accesses about 150,000 resouces. Hits are hand-picked, annotated and ranked by editors at Britannica. Accepts the use of boolean operators AND, OR, NOT. Regrettably, the best information is reserved for those who subscribe only.

Infomine - academic librarians compile information from about 16,000 resources. The boolean operator AND is implied between words. Also accepts OR.

Librarian's Index - about 5,000 sources that are compiled by public librarians in the information supply business. Only lists highest quality sites. The boolean operator AND is implied between words. Also accepts OR and NOT. Results posted with annotations.

MSN - MSN has its own team of editors that monitors the most popular searches being performed and then hand-picks sites that are believed to be the most relevant. After performing a search, "Popular Topics" shown below the search box on the results page are also suggestions built largely by editors to guide you into making a more refined search. When appropriate, search results may also feature links to encyclopedia content from Microsoft Encarta or news headlines, at the top of the page. Once again though, some of the more informative links are for subscribers only.

Yahoo - one of the oldest subject guides, this accesses about 1 million WWW pages, e-mail addresses, Usenet news groups. Does not accept boolean logic operators. Results have limited annotations (if any) in the form of a list of categories and end-sites that match keywords.

Metasearch Sites:
These sites send searches to several search engines simultaneously. Since metasearch engines do not allow for input of many search variables or boolean operators, their best use is to find hits on obscure items or to see if something is posted on the Internet.

Dogpile - integrates several medium and large Web search and index guides into a single service. It also
provides a single launching point for stock quotes, usenet articles, weather forecasts, and yellow pages. Annotated results are posted within identified search engines and/or guides.

Metacrawler - MetaCrawler incorporates from the top search engines on the Web. It collates results, eliminates duplication, scores the results and provides the user with a comprehensive list of relevant sites.

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