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Searching for the right engine
The great strength of the internet search engines is that they can locate vast amounts of documents matching what a user may be looking for. The great weakness is that these may not resemble at all the kind of documents he or she is interested in.
A search engine is a coordinated set of programs which allows looking for specific information on the vast expanse of the world wide web. The first search engine, known as Archie, was created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at the McGill University in Canada.
Today there are some 400 search engines available, of which 10 are considered major ones. Then there are directories and indexes. In this article, for the sake brevity and clarity, both directories and indexes have been taken as search engines, though there are some fundamental differences between them. For instance, directories are people-powered while search engines have crawlers or robots to do the job. A number of web portals offer both the approaches towards finding the required information.
The purpose of search engines is to locate a selected range of web-pages that contain words that match keyword(s) or phrase(s). Search engines automatically try to sort out the results so that only a handful of the most relevant matches are presented to the user.
Every search engine looks for the required information in its own pre-indexed database, using its own set of rules called an algorithm which is a closely guarded secret. Some sites not just use one search engine but give the results from simultaneous searches from other engines too.
One common feature is that all search engines give importance to the location of the keyword(s) in their listings (in the beginning, in the body or at the end) and frequency (the number of time the keyword(s) is/are repeated on a page). But their databases, relevance criteria and other strategies differ from each other.
This is one reason why different search engines give different results for the same keyword(s). Also, some search engines index more web-pages than others. Search engines may exclude some pages from their data as well.
Any major search engine is a good choice to start a search, but Google is a favourite around the world. It rules “with its empire stretching to millions of computers”, as Bill Thompson, an IT analyst, has put it.
Several major engines provide search toolbars for the browsers as a shortcut to searching the web from within the browser without going to a search engine first. These are useful utilities, though Patty Ferguson, another analyst, thinks: “Some toolbars contain spyware and adware which are harmful to the users’ machines and invade their privacy. I have had several cases in the past that really messed up the users’ computers.”
Searching for what?
The amount of information on the web has exploded over the past few years and is growing exponentially. The number of information seekers rummaging through the web “for enlightenment and answers” is also growing. The problem of locating the right information is also becoming acute. The users now want to find exactly what they are looking for speedily and with little effort.
Tools which support the location of the relevant material after a few mouse clicks and key strokes are becoming increasingly critical. Search engines and how they index web-pages have changed drastically in the recent past, getting more scientific and meticulous by the day. But the situation is far from adequate.
A survey conducted by Bright Planet estimated that the web is some 500 times larger than the size indicated by the results provided by popular search engines. A greater part of the body of knowledge created in the world is still not on the web. Some of this knowledge is never likely to be in cyberspace, actually.
Dr Norbert Pintsch, a German architect, says: “The problem is that we consider a small part of knowledge available on the web as the whole, forgetting the larger part.” Some of the knowledge is off-limits to search engines, being behind security or subscription firewalls.
Meanwhile, just because some particular information was not found readily, it does not mean that it does not exist on the web. Sometimes it takes several attempts through various search engines using different keyword(s) to find the required information. The best way to learn this involves reading the help files on the search engine sites and then putting into practice whatever is given there. Most internet savvy users I talked to had never opened these files and a majority used Google only.
“Why bother with the help files? Searching the web is self-explanatory and one can easily learn by trial and error,” said one of them.
I suggest that you go for a specialised search engine if you are looking for a topic in which that engine specialises. Consider using a tool that will use a number of search engines simultaneously.
Use of Boolean operators (such as AND, OR and NOT) between wisely chosen search keyword(s) and phrase(s) can locate the required results more efficiently.
In today’s increasingly commercial information society, any user mining the internet for information should understand that marketers pay big money to gain better placement for their products in the search engine listings.
They think that search results are better than any other form of online advertising. Paid inclusions — for which advertisers pay to get their websites crawled more often and more thoroughly — ensure that some sites are cited more frequently than others, in turn producing skewed and biased results.
Mergers, acquisitions, partnerships and an estimated growth of 10 to 30 per cent in the search industry also point out to the dynamism of the phenomenon. Search companies are spending huge sums to improve their services and to look different from others. They are also earning big revenues.
I feel that web searching has not matured in Pakistan as much as the other internet functions like emailing or surfing have. Exceptions apart, a usual web search starts with Google and ends right there. Most users here try to look for local content and end up with such unfamiliar information that frustrates them.
They tend to forget that the scope of the internet is international. Naïve users sometimes do not know of the basics and are intimidated by the quantum of the results generated.
Who really can read through dozens of pages of result listings? “And if the huge quantum of documents is to be read, then what is the search for,” asks Naeem Alvi, a student?
But then there are also inspiring examples of local users taking full advantage of the facility. People have been known to go abroad for higher studies after looking for, and finding, the kind of information they needed to do so. Some doctors and writers regularly use the engines to get what they want.
Search engines may be brilliant, but their technology is still evolving. They are yet to reach the point where humans and machines understand each other well enough to communicate properly. People are already demanding better results.
Given the rapid developments taking place, the search engine technology is set to make headway quickly. My recommendation: try different search engines to locate the required information.
The writer is a freelance contributor
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