h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Search Engines - A842311
Author: dpen2000 - U205034

It would be good to hear some comments on this before I send it to peer review.

I think you should expand a bit on what exactly "crawling the web" means - how the search engines follow links, how you can ask the search engine to index your own page, what happens when new pages come along.

What you describe here is AltaVista and engines like it.

You should say something about Google, since it differs from other search engines in two major ways:

1. It only returns pages which include all the words you supply. This is the equivalent of putting + in front of all the words in AltaVista. This style of search suits someone who has a fair idea what they are looking for, while the Altavista style is better for people who only have a vague idea.

2. Google assigns an importance to each result based on how popular the page is on the web. This is judged mainly by the number of other pages that link to it. The results are then displayed with the most important first. This pushes crackpot websites down to the bottom of the list and "official" sites get a very high listing. This feature makes Google the number one search engine in the world!

you might also want to link to zyra's list of search engines at http://www.zyra.org.uk/search.htm which includes quite a few of them.

How about...
a step by step guide example of how to *narrow your search*
some tips for site owners aimed at increasing their ranking(s)

And Google's *advanced search* and *advanced image search* surely rate a mention, if only because they work so well and are not biased by the mighty $

dpen has unsubscribed and appears to be on site sporadically. I'd say a move to the Flea Market would be in order.

Oh, forget that! I checked the wrong researcher's conversation list

On the other hand, there's been no reply from dpen since he/she first put this into the Writing Workshop.

Talk to us please!

Come on dpen! All these people have come to help... honest!
It's quite a good entry already, as it goes.
Oberon2001

Hello there one and all!
You may be interested to know that I've jsut rescued this from FM and here is the new entry -> A1037792
I'm still working on it at the moment (and I've credited Gnomon 'cos I've used some of your suggestions in this thread) but expect it in PR soon.
Oberon2001

Oberon, the thing that sets Google above all the other search engines is not so much the "And search" - that's available in Altavista by using + signs. It is Google's ordering of the results by 'importance' that makes it so useful.

I've always thought (and so have my friends that aren't too good with computers) that the fact that google doesn't ask for AND or + signs to be the best thing about.
Oberon2001

I like that feature too, but it is just an aid to typing. The search engine finds the same pages as Altavista would if you use '+' in Altavista.

The people who own Google claim it is different because it shows the pages you want first. It does this using the 'importance' algorithm.

Oh right... well, I think they're wrong, but I've amended it anyway.
Oberon2001