ABSTRACT
In Chapter 4, “Using the World Wide Web for Research,” we introduced keyword searching in search engine databases. In this chapter, we’ll cover searching these databases in detail. Why is it so important to learn how to search these databases? Search engines are the most powerful search tools on the World Wide Web, with the most popular being those that access the largest databases. Most of the major search engines claim to index the entire World Wide Web. Many also index Usenet newsgroups and FTP sites. None of the search engines are exactly alike. Some are better for certain kinds of information than others. Maybe you’ve tried a few search engines and have found that some engines retrieve too many documents that aren’t at all what you wanted. Perhaps at other times they don’t retrieve enough information. This chapter should clear up some ambiguities you may have about why some searches work well and others don’t.
