Section
5.1
Search Index/Google

This section will use the topic and keywords developed
in Part 3 (my example: Civil War
Generals, keywords are civil war, general, union, biography) to search
with a Search Index. Search Indexes are large, organized collections
of Web pages from around the world. The index grows larger every day
as people submit addresses for web pages, and as special software,
called search robots or spiders, roams the Web looking for links to
new pages. When you use a search index, you search the entire collection
using keywords or phrases.
Which index
to use?
The search index is the most common type of searching
site, and there are many different search indexes available. This
section will discuss Google
<http://www.google.com>, but the techniques you learn here
can be applied to most indexes. Part
7 has a list of different search sites.
Google
Google
is a new and powerful, yet easy to use Search Index. Background comes
straight from the the Site:
" Google uses
sophisticated next-generation technology to produce the right
results fast with every query. Google returns relevant results
because it responds to your query using an automated method that
ranks relevant websites based on the link structure of the Internet
itself.
The overwhelming amount
of information of the web requires an excellent search service
to render that information accessible and useful. Without a powerful
search tool, finding a specific website can be as difficult as
finding a book in a library that has no card catalogue and a completely
random method of storing its books.
Google Brings Order
to the Web
Google is designed
to impose order on information chaos. It's what a search service
should be; not an edited, limited directory or a list of results
that have been auctioned to the highest bidder, but a thoughtful
method of organizing the Internet according to its own structure.
"
Google thinks a page is important because other people think it's
important. It bases its rankings on how many other pages link to
a paticular site. A search for "White House" will turn
up the President's Home first, followed by information about the
White House, and so forth and so on, until results turn up on White
House Bed and Breakfast, White House Paint store, and other non-government-White
House pages.
Google is very powerful and returns quality results. Let's see
how to use Google.
