1. EDU 626 Integration of Educational Technology
Spring 2013
Lost in the net?
Navigating Search Engines

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Define “search engine”?
 What is a search engine?
− Essentially, a search engine is a computer
program. The biggest ones, such as Google,
Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo!, and Ask, use giant
clusters of computers to search the web. Others
search only the owner’s site
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/guides/about-search-engines

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A more scholarly definition
 search engine
− Originally, a hardware device designed to
search a text-based database for specific
character strings (queries) typed as input by the user.
More recently, computer software designed to help the
user locate information available at sites on the World
Wide Web by selecting categories from a hierarchical
directory of subjects (example: Yahoo!) or by entering
appropriate keywords or phrases (Google, Hotbot, etc.).
Most Web search engines allow the searcher to use
Boolean logic and truncation in search statements.
• Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science

4. 4
Huh?
 What’s the core of that definition?
− “designed to help the user locate information
available at sites on the World Wide Web”
− Two methods involved to locate that
information:
1. from a hierarchical directory of subjects
2. by entering appropriate keywords or phrases

5. A hierarchical directory of 5
subjects?

6. 6
Example of a web directory?
This is the way it
used to be
historically, that
is! But is Yahoo!
a directory now?

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Another example—that exists today!
HotVsNot.com is a
premium web
directory focused
on providing high-
quality, well-
categorized listings
of business-related
websites.
http://www.hotvsnot.
com/About/
http://www.hotvsnot.com/

8. 8
Entering appropriate keywords or phrases
 What is a keyword?
− A “keyword” or “keyword Phrase” is the word
or words a person types into the search box on a
search engine to look up subject matter on the
Internet. If you are looking for a flag for your
home or office, you might type in “American
Flags”.
• SEO Questions & Answers (FAQ)

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How does a search engine work?
 3 basic tasks of search engines:
1. They search the Internet -- or select pieces of the
Internet -- based on important words.
2. They keep an index of the words they find, and
where they find them.
3. They allow users to look for words or
combinations of words found in that index.
• How Internet Search Engines Work
by Curt Franklin

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How a search engine builds its index

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What does this mean?
1. You are not searching the Web directly, and
not even a snapshot of the Web, either
2. You are not even searching all of the Web,
only the websites that have been crawled by
the search engine’s bots
3. The indexes do not distinguish the keywords
by their meaning—they’re simply a collection
of words with the links to where they occur
[it’s not for nothing that one of the metasearch
engines is called Dogpile!]

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What about the order of appearance?
 How search engines rank web pages?
 Search engines can only rank a web site by the text
information they read on a web page
 Search engines rank a web page by “a formula” [or
“algorithm”]
 Search engines rank sites by user priority
 Search engines rank page titles
 Page names affect ranking results
 Search engines value the RIGHT Domain Name
 Search engines rank web pages by the words they
contain
 How does Google rank websites?

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Can you improve your site’s ranking?
 What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?
− SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is
the process of getting traffic from the “free,”
“organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search
engines. All major search engines such as Google,
Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages
and other content such as videos or local listings are
shown and ranked based on what the search engine
considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t
involved, as it is with paid search ads.

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What does all this mean?
 Your mileage will vary!
− When you compare your search across different
search engines

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Results vary for the same search engine,
too!
 Google Now Personalizes
Everyone’s Search Results
− By watching what you click on in search results, Google
can learn that you favor particular sites. For example, if
you often search and click on links from Amazon that
appear in Google’s results, over time, Google learns that
you really like Amazon. In reaction, it gives Amazon a
ranking boost. That means you start seeing more Amazon
listings, perhaps for searches where Amazon wasn’t
showing up before.
− In particular, we now have two “flavors” of personalized
search, or “Web History” as is the official Google name
for it. There’s Signed-Out Web History and Signed-In
Web History.
• Dec 4, 2009 at 6:18pm ET by Danny Sullivan

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Google’s justification
 Basics: Search history personalization
− By personalizing your results based on your search history, we hope
to deliver you the most useful, relevant content for your search.
Search history personalization is just one of the ways that we show
you more personalized search results. Learn more about personal
results
− When you're signed in, Google personalizes your search experience
based on your Google Web History.
• You can turn off Google Web History
• You can also view and remove individual items
• You can also turn off personal results
− When you're not signed in, Google personalizes your search
experience based on past search information linked to your
browser, using a cookie. . . . If you don't want to see results
personalized based on your search history while you are signed out,
you can turn off search history personalization.

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Limiting your search results
 Phrase search

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Focusing your search queries
 Field Search
− Field searching is an optional way to focus your
search results. With general search engines,
you're searching the full text of many millions of
pages, and field searching can help you retrieve
results that may be more manageable. For
example, you can search for words that appear
within a particular Web site, within the URL
(Web address), in the page title, and so on. The
exact technique for doing this can differ among
search engines, so be sure to check out the Help
pages before proceeding.
• Basic Search Techniques

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Field search commands
 Title field
− Google allintitle:
− Bing intitle:
− Searches for keywords only in the title of a
website
− e. g. allintitle:hurricane caribbean deaths
− intitle:hurricane caribbean deaths
 Limit to specific website
− Both Google and Bing use site:
− e. g. site:nasa.gov

20. The End