There are several basic ways to access information on the Internet.
- Go directly to a site if you have the address
- Browse
- Explore a subject directory
- Conduct a search using a Web search engine
- Explore the information stored in live databases on the web, known as the “deep Web”
- Join an e-mail discussion group or Usenet newsgroup. These options are described below.
- Go directly to a site if you have the Address.
This is the format of the URL: protocol://host/path/file name. Read related posts on our research page of the site.
1. Address
For example:http://www.widernet.org/TechTraining/index.htm-ahypertext hypertext file on the Web, ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/picasso-a file at an FTP site, telnet://opac. Albany. Edu-a Telnet connection. Any of these addresses can be typed into the location window of a Web browser.
2. Browse.
You can browse home pages on the Web to find desired material on the Internet. Because the creator of a home page programs each link, you never know where these links might lead. High-quality starting pages will contain high-quality links.
The University Libraries ‘ website contains quality links leading to the Web and is a good place to start your exploration.
3. Explore a Subject Directory
An increasing number of universities, libraries, companies, organisations, and even volunteers are creating subject directories to catalogue portions of the Internet. These directories are organised by subjects and consist of links to Internet resources relating to these subjects.
There are two basic types of directories: academic and professional directories, often created and maintained by subject experts to support the needs of researchers, and directories contained in commercial portals that cater to the general public and are competing for traffic. Be sure you use the directory that appropriately meets your needs.
INFOMINE, from the University of California, is a good example of an academic subject directory
Yahoo is the most famous example of a commercial portal
Subject directories differ significantly in selectivity. For example, the famous Yahoo directory does not carefully evaluate user-submitted content when adding Web pages to its database.
It is therefore NOT an unreliable research source and should not be used for this purpose. In contrast, INFOMINE selects only those sources considered useful to the academic and research community. Consider the policies of any directory that you visit.
4. Conduct a Search using a Web Search Engine
An Internet search engine allows the user to enter keywords relating to a topic and retrieve information about Internet sites containing those keywords. Search engines are available for many Internet protocols.
Web search engines have the advantage of offering access to a vast range of information resources located on the Internet. Many search engines compile a database spanning multiple Internet protocols, including HTTP, FTP, and Usenet. They may also search multimedia or other file types on the deep Web, often accessible as separate searches. Web search engines tend to be developed by private companies, though most of them are available free of charge.
Components of a Web Search Engine
A Web search engine service consists of three components:
Spider: A program that traverses the Web from link to link, identifying and reading pages.
Index: Database containing a copy of each Web page gathered by the spider.
Search engine mechanism: Software that enables users to query the index and that usually returns results in term relevance ranked order
Keep in mind that spiders are indiscriminate. Be aware that some of the resources they collect may be outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete. Be sure to evaluate all your search results carefully.
With most search engines, you fill out a form with your search terms and then ask that the search proceed. The engine searches its index and generates a page with links to those resources containing some or all of your terms. These resources are usually presented in ranked order.
A more sophisticated development in search engine technology is the ordering of search results by concept, keyword, site, links, or popularity.
For example, Google ranks results according to the number of highly ranked Web pages that link to other pages. A web page becomes highly ranked if other highly ranked pages link to it.
All search engines have rules for formulating queries. You must read the help files on the site before proceeding. Online tutorials can also help you learn the rules. A short list of recommended tutorials appears at the end of this file.
Recommended Starting Points
Start with Google. This is a famous second-generation search engine that ranks pages based on the number of links from pages ranked high by the service. The more highly ranked pages that contain these links, the higher the linked-to page will be ranked.
These highly ranked linking pages, in turn, are also determined by the number of highly ranked pages that link to them. The idea here is that a high-quality page will be found and linked to another high-quality page. The vast popularity of Google is a testament to the usefulness of this ranking scheme.
Point 1
Another interesting link-ranking engine is Teoma. This tool organises results into three sections: Web pages listed in link-ranked order, experts’ links that represent gateway sites, and concept clusters based on topic keywords. The clusters are dynamically generated and allow you to limit the results derived from a search.
The link ranking is a bit different from Google’s. Teoma ranks links from pages in the same subject”community” as the topic being searched. They call this”Subject-Specific Popularity.”
Point 2
Ixquick is a good place to try if your topic is obscure or if you want to retrieve results from a variety of search engines with a single search statement. This service searches multiple search tools simultaneously and returns your results in a single list that removes duplicate files.
Point 3
This type of search processing is called meta-searching. Even better, Ixquick only returns the top ten relevancy-ranked results from the source search services.
This means that you can take advantage of the collective relevance judgment of many tools at once. Other recommended meta-search engines include Vivisimo and ProFusion. For a more extensive list of recommended Web search engines, see Internet Search Engines.
Point 4
Explore the Deep Web: The concept of the “deep” or “invisible” Web has emerged in recent months. This refers to content that is stored in databases accessible on the Web but not available via search engines. In other words, this content is “invisible” to search engines.
This is because spiders cannot or will not enter into databases and extract content from them as they can from static Web pages. In the past, these databases were fewer in number and referred to as speciality databases, subject-specific databases, and so on.
The Invisible Web Note
The best way to access information on the invisible Web is to search the databases themselves. Topical coverage runs the gamut from scholarly resources to commercial entities.
Very current, dynamic information is likely to be stored in databases, including changing news, job listings, available airline flights, etc. As the number of web-accessible databases grows, it will become essential that they be used to conduct successful information finding on the Web.
Non-textual files
Other content not gathered by spiders includes non-textual files such as multimedia files, graphical files, and documents in non-standard formats such as Portable Document Format(PDF). Google is an exception here since it indexes PDF, Word, and other documents in its searchable index.
Keep in mind that many search engine sites and commercial portals feature deep Web content as part of their package of services.
This phenomenon falls under the heading of converging content. For example, you can visit AltaVista and look up news, maps, jobs, auctions, items for purchase, etc., all things outside the purview of a spider-gathered index.
As another example, Google integrates searches of PDF and Microsoft Office files into its general search service. Here are a few examples of sites that collect content from the deep Web:
The Invisible Web
http://www.invisibleweb.com/
A directory of over 10,000 databases, which offers the option to search for the database you need, from IntelliSeek
Invisible-web.net
http://www.invisible-web.net/
A directory of high-quality databases on the Web is especially useful to researchers
Search.Com
http://www.search.com/
Dozens of topic-based databases from CNET
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