Web Searches For What Lies Beneath

fat_hot writes: "The New York Times has an article [here] (registration required) about specialized search engines which try to drill into the submerged mass of the Internet iceberg to try to limit searches to particular subjects (and hopefully thereby increase coverage of the limited scope)." Considering that a google search for friends' web sites and other good stuff usually turns up more dirt than paydirt, it's pleasant to contemplate more relevance in search engines.

Comments

Searching Technique

[maggard]

Of course much of the problem is that few folks actually understand how to search properly.

Most of us recall being brough into the school library and show how to use the card catalog, given a few assignements, etc. Unfortubately for those of us out of school the's not that set of skills in place to help searching.

Boolean seaches, using key words, supplying partial words, phrases, etc. are all supported by most search engines but few folks understand how to use them.

What's really suprising to me is that folks who use search engines regularly, indeed even rely upon them (journalists I mean you!) seem some of the most poorly prepared. There are lots of resources for learning how to do a good search, many from the search engines themselves and many more from third parties yet we still get these perennial "I can't find ..." stories.

Honestly, I'm not into blaming-the-victim but how difficult is it to learn how to perform a good search? One screen of directions? Two minutes of time?

Yes there's a place for specialized engines handling unique or limited content but most of the larger, more general purpose engines do nearly as well if properly used. Again, it's dependant on the user to learn how to define what they want, all of the tools in the world are no good if they're not taken advantage of.

Re:Searching Technique

[WinDoze]

For some insight into how truly bad some people are at constructing a search request, check out Disturbing Search Requests. It's updated constantly and is a consistent source of wonder and amusement.

Directories and specific searches plethorous

[shalunov]

The article talks about hand-picked sites to crawl to "eliminate irrelevant results". Isn't this what directories are about?

Why does one need cheesy dotcoms to tell us what a directory is?

A directory search limited to U.S. newspapers immediately brings up, say, an explanation by Linda Chavez about her relationship with the illegal alien in question.

If one wants political news, one can go to a political news source. If one wants information on Linda Chavez, one can do a more specific search. If one wants political news about Linda Chavez, one can (this must be getting very complex for your average dotcom founder) search a news archive.