Search Engine Assignment

Many search engines provide some reasonably sophisticated options to make a better search. Hopefully answering these questions will lead you to looking at some of the possibilities. Due next week.

www.yahoo.com Look at the advanced search specifications and then answer the following questions. The answer should include a picture or an explanation of a test you made using that option.

  1. What does a + in front of a word mean?
  2. What does a in front of a word mean?
  3. What does t: in front of the word mean? What does a u: in front of the word mean?
  4. Explain what putting a phrase in quotes accomplishes?
  5. Explain wildcard matching using the *.

www.altavista.com Look at the basic search specifications and then answer the following questions. The answer should include a picture or an explanation of a test you made using that option.

  1. Explain how to find a specific domain name or a specific title or a specific URL.
  2. Explain the difference between natural language queries and exact phrases.
  3. Explain case considerations.

www.altavista.com Look at the advanced text search specifications and then answer the following questions. The answer should include a picture or an explanation of a test you made using that option.

  1. Give the symbol and explain the action for the Boolean operator AND.
  2. Give the symbol and explain the action for the Boolean operator OR.
  3. Give the symbol and explain the action for the Boolean operator NOT.
  4. Give the symbol and explain the action for the Boolean operator NEAR.
  5. Explain how to use ( ) to group complex Boolean phrases. Explain how AND and OR are resolved and give examples of
  1. Explain ranking in the advanced search.
  2. Explain the use of dates in the advanced search.

 

www.hotbot.com Look at the advanced search specifications then answer the following questions. The answer should include a picture of or an explanation of a test you made using that option.

  1. What is the difference between all of the words and any of the words. Which is an AND relationship and which is an OR relationship?
  2. Explain the word filter?
  3. Explain the date specification?
  4. If the domain was entered as .edu, what does this mean?
  5. Explain stemming.

www.snap.com Look at the power search specifications and then answer the following questions. The question should include a picture of or an explanation of a test you made using that option. Use the words Easter Island in your test unless the question specifies something else or lets you pick the test.

  1. Test any of the words, and all of the words and the exact phrase. Compare the results.
  2. Use the Boolean phrase and test Easter OR Island and then test Easter AND Island and compare the results to each other and to the test in #1.
  3. Use the Boolean phrase and test Easter AND (Sunday OR Island). What is the logic that this phrase uses?
  4. Now use the Boolean phrase and test "Easter Sunday" OR "Easter Island". What is the logic that this phrase uses? Compare to the results in #3.
  5. Test for page title
  6. Using your own words (explain what you did), test the various choices in more search terms.
  7. What is the difference between search all pages and search only top level pages. Make up your own test and explain.
  8. Explain domain, extension, web site and country code.

www.excite.com Look at the advanced web search specifications and then answer the following questions. The question should include a picture of or an explanation of a test you made using that option. Use the words Mount Everest in your test unless the question specifies something else or lets you pick the test.

  1. Figure out how to get either Mount OR Everest.
  2. Try to get Everest and either Mt OR Mount
  3. Explain the must contain, must not contain, should contain and word or phrase choices.

www.goto.com Try these searches and a few of your own and decide whether GOTO supports the AND and the OR.

  1. Mount OR Everest
  2. Everest AND (Mt or Mount)

www.yahoo.com Using the directory at Yahoo, find Mount Everest. How many differet categories did you have to try? Did you hve to resort to a search? Compare the process and the results to doing a search.