Take the mystery out of searching the World Wide Web

By JIM BROOKS

If Santa brought you or a family member that new computer, chances are you've either got some free hours with one of the national Internet providers as part of the deal, or you have signed up with one of the local Internet access providers in the local area.

The national companies have one advantage -- they come packaged with your computer, and can offer you free time to try out their services.

Local Internet providers usually offer the Internet at a lower cost -- and the better ones will offer 24-hour technical support and free software.

But once you're connected to the Internet, then what?

Your computer is like a magic carpet that will transport you to destinations around the world and hand you the information you need -- provided you could find it.

SEARCHING THE WEB. Search engines are the lifeblood of the Internet, and for those of us who want to find things online, they're essential.

But not all search engines are alike. The differences among them are significant -- and can make or break your Internet search.

REV UP THE ENGINES. The generic term "search engine" is most often applied to a large category of search Web sites.

The list of search engine sites includes many of the better known sites and Web portals, including AltaVista, Northern Light, Hotbot, GoTo.com, Excite and Lycos.

Search engines use automated "spiders" to systematically scan and index Web pages. They allow you to search their entire database of Web pages by keyword, and closely match the words you are searching for.

And to confuse matters more, some search engines resell their technology to "power" the search capabilities of other search engines.

Search engines don't always break down their collections by categories, and doing a simple search on them can sometimes return tens of thousands of pages -- many of which may not be related to the topic you're searching for.

The key to successfully searching is knowing how to use each type of tool.

KEYS TO THE SEARCH ENGINE. When using a search engine, I suggest starting out with more than one word as a keyword.

In my own search, I tried searching both for "Chevrolet," and for the more specific "1955 Chevrolet Bel Air."

At the search engine I used, the keyword "Chevrolet" returned 107,405 hits. Of the top 10 matches it displayed, not one of them related to classic Chevrolets that I'm interested in.

A search for "1955 Chevrolet Bel Air" returned 710 hits, and all of the top 10 matches were related to that year classic Chevrolet.

Every search engine offers tips for improving your search results. In this case, I clicked to the Advanced Search Tips page and discovered that putting a plus sign (+) between the words when searching allowed the Web site to only return hits that included all of the words listed.

This single tip narrowed the search by thousands of hits, and led me to the content I was looking for.

Every Internet user quickly develops his or her favorite search engine site; take time to become familiar with the advanced search tips and you'll make life a lot easier for yourself when searching.

SEARCH-O-RAMA. I had an uncle whom once told me "Variety is the spice of life," and that's true also of search engines on the Internet.

The ones previously mentioned are aimed at searching the entire Internet. There are many search engines that have a much narrower focus for their content. Here are a few examples:

• The James Tiberius Kirk Star Trek Search Engine - searches Web sites devoted to Star Trek.

Mr.Driver.com - searches the Web for new device drivers for various operating systems.

Sportsdogs.com - a searchable database of sports-related Web sites.

WEB DIRECTORIES. The term "search engine" is usually applied universally to all Web sites that offer search capabilities.

Directories may look like search engines, but they differ considerably in how they operate.

For starters, directories require human intervention -- and lots of it.

Web sites are hand-selected by the staff and then added to the directory -- or removed from it, as the case may be.

Web sites that are directories include top-ranked Yahoo!, AOL NetFind, LookSmart and Magellan.

All of these sites employ editors who review and select Web sites; as a result, you can usually count on better quality of the hits returned when you perform a search at a directory.

It's important to remember that directories don't claim to have indexed the entire World Wide Web -- only parts of it, and much of that comes from folks who take the time to submit their Web site for review.

DIRECTORY SOUP. Another point to remember about directories is that there are a vast number of them in vertical markets, offering very specialized searches of their directories.

Here are a few examples:

Dot.com Directory - Network Solutions, the domain name folks, have created a large and searchable database and Web portal for finding businesses on the Internet.

InfoSpace.com - the best people and business finder on the Web. You can even perform reverse lookups of phone numbers, allowing you to place a business or individual with a phone number.

About.com - About.com is a collection of topic-driven Web sites, each hosted by someone knowledgeable in that particular topic. This collection of sites has become one of my favorite stops on the Web.

Like their search engine brethren, directories also employ advanced searching techniques that can refine and improve your search results. Narrowing your search often will improve your luck.

METASEARCH SITES. The final category of Web search sites is the Meta-Search Engine Web site. Despite the technical name, the function of a meta-search site is fairly simple.

At a meta-search site, you enter the keyword or keywords and the site then uses that information to poll any number of other search engines and directories.

The attraction is that you can amass search hits from multiple Web sites at once. The drawback is that you may not be able to fine-tune your searches to your advantage.

Meta-search sites include the ever-popular Dogpile.com, Metacrawler.com and Mamma.com.

They're worth a try, and might be your best first stop you make in your Web searching in the New Year.

WEB BROWSER WATCH. If you are using an older Web browser, chances are you might run into problems if you try to access certain e-commerce, online banking or finance information Web sites in the New Year.

The problem isn't a Y2k glitch -- but it is related to the date change. Web browsers use electronic credentials called "certificates" that are your digital identification to secure Web sites.

And for older Web browsers, these certificates were set to expire on Dec. 31, 1999 -- which means that an e-commerce Web site may not allow you to access your old account information until you upgrade your Web browser.

The problem is likely to affect users of Netscape Navigator 4.05 and earlier, and those who downloaded the Mac version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.5 and Outlook Express 5 before Dec. 21, 1999.

To fix the problem, users will need to download the latest version of Netscape Navigator or Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

In a story last week reported by the Silicon Valley News, between 5 and 10 million Netscape users and more than 2 million Mac users will be affected.

To download the latest version of Netscape Communicator, visit Netscape's Netcenter Web site at http://home.netscape.com. For the latest version of Internet Explorer, point your browser to Microsoft's home page at www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/.

WALLY'S WEB WORLD. Wal-Mart's new e-commerce site is now online.The launch date was moved up from this fall, and plans are for more than 600,000 items to be available for purchase online.

At press time, there was no indication if Wal-Mart would also roll out its anticipated low-cost or free Internet access plans with the launch.

For more information, visit Wal-Mart Online at www.walmart.com.

Comments and questions about this column may be sent to jbrooks@myoldkentuckyhome.com, or visit www.myoldkentuckyhome.com on the World Wide Web.

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