Internet Chapter 3-Searching The Web

hashtag (126)

A hashtag is word or phrase (with spaces removed), preceded by the # sign. Hashtags are a form f metadata, and are used in social media platforms. Event promoters, politicians, social activists, entertainers, and more use hashtags to create and analyze trending topics. Hashtags effectively create a group of related posts or media on a specific platform, such as Twitter.

directory (99)

A human-compiled, hierarchical list of webpages organized by category.

metasearch engine (109)

A meta search engine is a special type of search tool that compiles the search results from multiple search engines into a single search results list, effectively performing multiple different searches at once. Meta search engines include Dogpile, Mamma.com, Zoo (fig 3-22) and Ixquick. when you enter search query keywords in a metasearch engine's search text box, the metasearch engine submits the search query to a number of search engines at one time.

keyword (94)

A search query is a question that defines the information you seek. A query should include a least one keyword, a specific word that descries that information.

natural language search (93)

Focus on natural language searches that use phrases or questions rather than keywords. For example, a keyword search might be: SEO search engine rankings. A natural language search for the same topic might be: How can I use SEO to improve my website's search engine rankings?

search engine optimization (SEO) (93)

Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines keep their search engine algorithms private. By not disclosing search engine algorithms, the search engines are attempting to prevent search engine optimization (SEO) marketers from manipulating web content to improve search rankings in order to have them appear higher in search results. Google updates its search algorithm approximately 500 times per year, requiring SEO marketers to follow best web content-writing practices rather than focusing exclusively on search engine rankings. Other trends and developments in search engine algorithms include: *Personalized searches based on a user's previous search history *Localized searches that provide results targeted to a user's geographic location *Analysis of popular search terms in order to improve the algorithms *Increased focus on social sharing by analyzing trending and commonly shared web content on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter *Focus on natural language searches Focus on natural language searches that use phrases or questions rather than keywords. For example, a keyword search might be: SEO search engine rankings. A natural language search for the same topic might be: How can I use SEO to improve my website's search engine rankings? *Banning or removing webpages from the search engine index if they use manipulative or unethical SEO practices, ensuring the best search results for users.

bot (105)

In contrast to directories, which humans compile, a search engine uses software called a spider, bot (short for robot), or web crawler that browses the web, automatically adding the URLs and other information about webpages to a searchable index. Yahoo! Slurp, Googlebot, and Bingbot are all examples of web crawlers. Web crawlers provide a categorize content for search engines. Users do not interact directly with web crawlers. Different search engines collect different kinds of information about each webpage, but web crawlers typically scan for some or all of the following information to create their indexes: *Page title--coded title that appears on the browser title bar when the webpage opens *URL--specifically, the domain name (for example, cheaptickets.com) *Meta tag keywords-descriptive keywords coded into the webpage's HTML code that are readable by the web crawler but invisible to the user *Occurrence of keywords--both the frequency of use and where they appear on a webpage *All of the words on the webpage, which is known as full-text searching *Internal links within the webpage to other pages on the website (for example, site maps) *Number and relevancy of other webpages that link to the page Web servers store the webpage information retrieved by a web crawler in database, creating an index similar to the index at the back of a book. Web crawlers continually browse the web to update their indexes with modified webpage content or new, previously unknown webpages. When a user interacts with a search engine, it accesses the results of the web crawler's searches, but doesn't interact with the web crawler directly.

spider (105)

In contrast to directories, which humans compile, a search engine uses software called a spider, bot (short for robot), or web crawler that browses the web, automatically adding the URLs and other information about webpages to a searchable index. Yahoo! Slurp, Googlebot, and Bingbot are all examples of web crawlers. Web crawlers provide a categorize content for search engines. Users do not interact directly with web crawlers. Different search engines collect different kinds of information about each webpage, but web crawlers typically scan for some or all of the following information to create their indexes: *Page title--coded title that appears on the browser title bar when the webpage opens *URL--specifically, the domain name (for example, cheaptickets.com) *Meta tag keywords-descriptive keywords coded into the webpage's HTML code that are readable by the web crawler but invisible to the user *Occurrence of keywords--both the frequency of use and where they appear on a webpage *All of the words on the webpage, which is known as full-text searching *Internal links within the webpage to other pages on the website (for example, site maps) *Number and relevancy of other webpages that link to the page Web servers store the webpage information retrieved by a web crawler in database, creating an index similar to the index at the back of a book. Web crawlers continually browse the web to update their indexes with modified webpage content or new, previously unknown webpages. When a user interacts with a search engine, it accesses the results of the web crawler's searches, but doesn't interact with the web crawler directly.

web crawler (105)

In contrast to directories, which humans compile, a search engine uses software called a spider, bot (short for robot), or web crawler that browses the web, automatically adding the URLs and other information about webpages to a searchable index. Yahoo! Slurp, Googlebot, and Bingbot are all examples of web crawlers. Web crawlers provide a categorize content for search engines. Users do not interact directly with web crawlers. Different search engines collect different kinds of information about each webpage, but web crawlers typically scan for some or all of the following information to create their indexes: *Page title--coded title that appears on the browser title bar when the webpage opens *URL--specifically, the domain name (for example, cheaptickets.com) *Meta tag keywords-descriptive keywords coded into the webpage's HTML code that are readable by the web crawler but invisible to the user *Occurrence of keywords--both the frequency of use and where they appear on a webpage *All of the words on the webpage, which is known as full-text searching *Internal links within the webpage to other pages on the website (for example, site maps) *Number and relevancy of other webpages that link to the page Web servers store the webpage information retrieved by a web crawler in database, creating an index similar to the index at the back of a book. Web crawlers continually browse the web to update their indexes with modified webpage content or new, previously unknown webpages. When a user interacts with a search engine, it accesses the results of the web crawler's searches, but doesn't interact with the web crawler directly.

Deep Web (132)

Invisible web or Deep web; web-based resources that are invisible to the typical web user are called the Invisible web or Deep Web. these resources typically do not appear in search engine indexes because they exist only when generated dynamically by a search query, are not linked to other webpages, are not in HTML format (such as video or other media), or are private or password0protected.

Invisible Web (132)

Invisible web or Deep web; web-based resources that are invisible to the typical web user are called the Invisible web or Deep Web. these resources typically do not appear in search engine indexes because they exist only when generated dynamically by a search query, are not linked to other webpages, are not in HTML format (such as video or other media), or are private or password0protected.

shopping aggregators (128)

Just about any product or services you can think of is for sale on the web. Shopping search engines, also shopping bots or shopping aggregators, include DealTime (Fig. 3-55) Nextag, and Yahoo! Shopping.

shopping bot (128)

Just about any product or services you can think of is for sale on the web. Shopping search engines, also shopping bots or shopping aggregators, include DealTime (Fig. 3-55) Nextag, and Yahoo! Shopping.

white pages directory (124)

Looking for other information, such as an email address or telephone number, is more efficient when you use a specialized directory, such as an online white pages directory or yellow pages directory. Named for their similarity to telephone directories, white and yellow pages directories include free resources such as Pipl and Wink,, and other directories suc as WhitePages and Superpages, that offer additional information for a fee (Fig 3-47). Some white and yellow pages directories offer additional services such as reverse lookup, which is useful when you know a telephone number and want to discover the name with which it is associated with.

yellow pages directory (124)

Looking for other information, such as an email address or telephone number, is more efficient when you use a specialized directory, such as an online white pages directory or yellow pages directory. Named for their similarity to telephone directories, white and yellow pages directories include free resources such as Pipl and Wink,, and other directories suc as WhitePages and Superpages, that offer additional information for a fee (Fig 3-47). Some white and yellow pages directories offer additional services such as reverse lookup, which is useful when you know a telephone number and want to discover the name with which it is associated with.

search query (94)

Question that defines the information you seek

stop word (96)

The search engine ignores small, unimportant words in a natural language search query, called stop words, and only uses the more important, specific words in the search. Examples of stop words include what, where, is, the, of, in, and how.

search results list (95)

You enter keywords in a search tool's search text box or in the Address box. The search tool uses keywords to identify relevant webpages and return a search results lists containing the URL, title, and description of and links to webpages that search tools determines to be the most relevant to the keywords.

search text box (95)

You enter keywords in a search tool's search text box or in the Address box. The search tool uses keywords to identify relevant webpages and return a search results lists containing the URL, title, and description of and links to webpages that search tools determines to be the most relevant to the keywords.

social media aggregators (126)

You will learn more about social media in Chapter 4. You can use specialize search engines, sometimes called social media aggregators, such as Technorati, Google Blog Search, Digg (Fig. 3-51) and Newsvine, to locate social media resources.

drilling down (100)

a user who locates information by tapping or clicking increasingly specific links

wiki (98)

a website that allows users to edit, update, and add content. When using wikis, keep in mind that biased or unauthorized authors or editors could be responsible for some articles. You should verify information you learn from a wiki within an outside source.

Surface Web (132)

accessible and searchable web content

full-text searching (105)

all of the words on the webpage

primary source (98)

any document, item, or other data that provides firsthand information about a particular topic

meta tag keywords (105)

descriptive keywords coded into the webpage's HTML code that are readable by the web crawler but invisible to the user

hit (95)

each webpage item listed in a search results list

search engine algorithms (92)

instruct the search engine to locate and rank search results based on keywords and a variety of other factors

broken link (98)

links that no longer work

index (100)

list of webpages

open-ended search (96)

seeks information on a broader scale using a simple keyword

targeted search (96)

seeks specific information using keyword combinations "average rainfall" Amazon rainforest.

crawler (92)

to located webpages, search engines determine relevancy of search results. based on page rankings, frequency of content updates, keywords and metadata, and number of inbound and outbound hyperlinks.

Boolean operator (112)

toRefining Searches A Boolean operator is a conjunction used in a logical expression. When given multiple keywords in a query, a search engine uses the AND, OR, and NOT (typed in all capital letters) Boolean operators to specify which keywords should be included in or excluded from the search results. Figure 3-26 lists several typical method for using Boolean operators to formulate a search query. Be aware that not all search engines handle Boolean operators in the same way. You can review a search engine's Help pages for tips on using Boolean operators in search queries. The AND operator indicates a keyword that must appear in a search results hit. As you learned earlier in this chapter, most search engines assume that a list of several keywords entered into the search text box are connected by the AND operator. Thus, a search engine returns a search results list in which the hits include all of the words in the query. Some search engines permit the inclusion of multiple keywords in a query by preceding them with a plus sign instead of the AND operators. Suppose you want the search results in the previous research example to include webpages that refer to students from either a university or a college. To find webpages that include either a university or a college, you must use an OR operator. To specify an either-or condition, you must specifically enter OR between the keywords to indicate that hits should include either of the keywords rather than both of the words. To exclude a keyword from a search, some search engines require you to use the NOT operator before the excluded term 9for example, diamonds NOT baseball). Other search engines might require a minus sign before the excluded term (for example, diamonds-baseball). In addition to Boolean operators, major search engines also offer a number of searching shortcuts, such as the example shown in Figure 3-27,. See your search engine's Help pages for more information about searching tips and shortcuts. Major search providers continue to update their search engines with new features so that they can compete profitably with other search providers. For example, Google includes options for refining search results by adding more detail to each hit in a search results list. Additionally, search engines based on new or improved search technologies continue to appear You should periodically survey available search engines to see what is new.

breadcrumb trail (101)

used by websites such as Fourmet.com (fig 3-9), shows the hierarchical arrangement of categories and subcategories through which you have clicked. This list of category and subcategory links typically is located at the top of a webpage. You can click any link in the breadcrumb trials to move back and forth between categories and subcategories and return to the home page.

search engine (105)

uses software called a spider, bot (short for robot), or web crawler that browses the web, automatically adding the URLs and other information about webpages to a searchable index. Yahoo! Slurp, Googlebot, and Bingbot are all examples of web crawlers. Web crawlers provide a categorize content for search engines. Users do not interact directly with web crawlers. Different search engines collect different kinds of information about each webpage, but web crawlers typically scan for some or all of the following information to create their indexes: *Page title--coded title that appears on the browser title bar when the webpage opens *URL--specifically, the domain name (for example, cheaptickets.com) *Meta tag keywords-descriptive keywords coded into the webpage's HTML code that are readable by the web crawler but invisible to the user *Occurrence of keywords--both the frequency of use and where they appear on a webpage *All of the words on the webpage, which is known as full-text searching *Internal links within the webpage to other pages on the website (for example, site maps) *Number and relevancy of other webpages that link to the page Web servers store the webpage information retrieved by a web crawler in database, creating an index similar to the index at the back of a book. Web crawlers continually browse the web to update their indexes with modified webpage content or new, previously unknown webpages. When a user interacts with a search engine, it accesses the results of the web crawler's searches, but doesn't interact with the web crawler directly.