Exploring search engines and keywords

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There is no foolproof method to locate all desired subject data on the Internet. Web sites are designed in a myriad of different ways, but there are some quick and simple techniques to help gain the desired results from search engines.

Helpful Hints
There is often a huge difference in the quality of results from different search engines.The more complex the search, the more important it becomes to use a good engine. For complex searches it is usually worth trying more than one engine. With its page ranking system and ease of use, Google is the top choice for everyone from novices to professional researchers.

Keywords are vital to any search. A search for articles about composition using the generic term "dance composition" returned several hundred sites listing classes available and college course outlines. However, using more unusual or specific terms such as the names of dance companies, seminal artists or dance eras helps locate data when used in conjunction with generic terms. To refine and improve the accuracy of the search use long strings of keywords. Using limiters such as au or uk narrows the search field further.

Computer-created catalogues are constructed without human interaction and can sometimes supply incorrect or useless information due to web-page builder's strategies. Examples of computer-created search sites are Webcrawler and Excite.Human-organised search sites can judge for relevance and select data which is useful. This is often best, because unlike a computer-created search engine, a human-organised search tool won't throw everything remotely associated with the topic into the results. Yahoo! and LookSmart are examples of human-generated sites.

Many principal search engines are hybrids. Google and Lycos are two of the most popular hybrid sites.

Metasearch sites send queries to several different search tools at once and compile the results. For example, in conducting a search for "Rudolph Von Laban" using the metasearch engine Dogpile, Google, Overture, AskJeeves, LookSmart, Inktomi, About, Findwhat and FAST were sourced, returning a range of results from dictionary meanings to academic writings.

The three fundamental steps to a computer database search are:
1. Breaking the topic down into its component concepts
2. Listing words which describe each concept or are relevant to the topic
3. Specifying the logical relationship among the key words (Boolean logic)

Boolean logic
Boolean logic is designed to produce better search results by using the words AND, OR and NOT to link words and phrases for more precise queries. It is best to get into the habit of capitalising the Boolean operators as on occasion, search engines will not recognise the lower case.

The Boolean AND narrows the search by retrieving only documents that contain every one of the keywords entered. The more terms entered, the narrower the search becomes.

The Boolean OR expands the search by returning documents in which either or both keywords appear. Since the OR operator is usually used for keyword synonyms, the more keywords entered the more documents retrieved.

The Boolean NOT or AND NOT limits the search by returning only the first keyword but not the second, even if the first word appears in that document.

Nesting, i.e. using parentheses, is an effective way to combine several search statements into one search statement. Use parentheses to separate keywords when using more than one Boolean operator and three or more keywords.

Boolean logic is not always simple or easy as search engines handle Boolean operators differently, in the way they accept operators or have drop-down menu logic that uses short phrases to spell out Boolean logic.

Implied Boolean operators use the plus (+) and minus (-) symbols in place of the full Boolean operators, AND and NOT, by typing + or - in front of a word to force the inclusion or exclusion. Similarly, double quotation marks (" ") around two or more words, searches for the exact phrase. Basic search options of most search engines accept implied operators.

For further explanations of Boolean logic refer to the following article:

http://library.albany.edu/internet/boolean.html
A Primer in Boolean Logic

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