Sree's Thoughts on Search Engines
Thursday, June 7, 2001

Search engines are perhaps the most frustrating part of the Internet. You expect them to serve up the exact information you are looking for, but instead you find yourself getting less-than-useful listings.

It's because most search engines cover only about 20 percent of the Web. It's like me sending you get a book from the library but closing off most of the building. Search engines cover so little because there are about three billion pages on the Web, with about 8 million being created every day. That's 10 times the total just two years ago.

Search engines just give you a long list of results -- search for "American Cancer Society" and you will get "500,000 results found." And you need to search through them and pick out the right ones. That can be a real waste of time.

Let's look at three popular Web search engines.

GOOGLE.com: The best one right now, without a doubt is Google. It works on the principle that all sites on the Web are linked to others and it treats those links like "votes." Add up those votes and if so many people are saying this is the American Cancer Society, it must be the American Cancer Society. It works really well. Even Google, though, does not cover the full Web and you need to try other engines as well.

ASKJEEVES.com: If you have kids, you may know about this site already. It does some things quite well. You can ask it a question in English rather than by just using keywords. On other search engines, you type in Michael Jordan and you get Jordan the river and Jordan the country... But type in "Who is Michael Jordan" on AskJeeves and you will be taken to a profile of the basketball star.

YAHOO.com: This popular destination has evolved quite a bit from its origin as a simple way to find sites. But it still does it basic function well -- but keep in mind that this is not a fully-functional engine per se, and so you should use this when you are looking for established sites, specific businesses that have had sites for a long time, etc. Also, it is useful for seeing many similar sites within a certain category.

Resouces:
SearchEngineWatch:
http://www.searchenginewatch.com

About.com's search engine section:
http://websearch.about.com

Send your feedback -- and ideas for coverage: techguru@sree.net

 

Sree's Site of The Week

Just a Tip
http://www.justatip.com

Are you the shy kind but still want to get your point across?

This site allows you to send anonymous e-mail compliments or critiques to friends, co-workers, even family.

Pick a category -- hygiene, fashion, personality, among others -- and you can tell a person in your life something positive or negative, appropriately personalized. If she or he takes the criticism in the right spirit, it works well.

I think it's much better not to hide behind anonymous e-mail messages, but there are occasions when this system is much more diplomatic.

http://www.justatip.com

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