The Web does not have a card catalog to search through to help you locate information. Therefore, in order to find information you must use one of the Web's search tools.
There are different types of search tools. Not all tools are created equal!
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| Information is entered and classified by staff members. | Information is gathered from the Net by "Robot" or "Spider" computerized programs. | Does not contain information in its own site database, it relies on searching the databases of other search tools. | Tools that provide results based on the popularity of visited Web sites. |
| Information is organized into subject tree listings. | Larger amounts of information contained in these databases. | ||
| Example:
Yahoo |
Examples:
AllTheWeb HotBot Alta Vista* (*Allows Natural Language Searches) |
Examples:
DogPile MetaCrawler Ask Jeeves* (*Allows Natural Language Searches) |
Example:
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| CHOOSE THIS TOOL IF: | |||
| Is your topic common or
broad?
Perhaps you are not sure what you are looking for and would like to just browse subject categories. |
If you are looking for something
a little more specific.
You may spend a more time refining your search, but there is more information available to sift through, increasing the likelihood you will find what you need. |
If you have a very specific topic, (a needle in a haystack) and have already exhausted one or two other search engines. | If you want to trust the opinions
of others, then perhaps these search tools are for you. They can provide
some excellent returns.
You may want to try these tools in addition to Directories for initial searches. |
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