Issue 1

Determining which search engine to use can be a problem. We have all got our favorites - Alta Vista, Excite, Webcrawler. Our students tend to prefer Yahoo. The best search tools will be dependable, efficient and relevant in their results.

First of all, we need to make a distinction between search engines and directories. Search engines use programs that regularly crawl the web. They add the sites they find to their index of pages. Alta Vista, HotBot and Ask Jeeves all fit this description.

On the other hand, directories are built by people. Submitted webpages are reviewed and those that meet the directory's criteria are added to their index. Yahoo is the most popular directory. It is also the most time-wasting search tool our students use. With its bias towards company listings and its often obscure categories, student searches often result in a deluge of irrelevant information.

Given that search engines are generally a better option for our students, we now need to examine what makes one search engine different from another, in terms of quality and quantity. The ranking process used by search engines determines which pages you see at the top of the list when your search is returned. Obviously, the nearer the top, the more likely we are to click on the link - few of us want to delve further than the first page of results, if at all possible.

The ranking used by major search engines is usually a proprietary process and the exact details are rarely released. It should be noted that a few engines such as GoTo and Cleansearch place paid-for submissions at the top of their listings.

Independent tests on searches using common terms and more obscure keywords increasingly place Google as the search engine most likely to produce relevant results.

The percentage of the Worldwide Web indexed by a search engine also needs to be taken into consideration. There are an estimated 1 to 1.2 billion internet webpages in existence today (although many of them link to other databases, producing a net result of maybe 500 times that figure!). Google has about half of those pages in its index, many more than its nearest rivals, Webtop and Alta Vista. Furthermore its search technology is designed to pull up pages it does not have in its index, greatly increasing its range.

Size isn't everything, especially if you are searching on popular topics. In these cases, a search engine with a smaller index size, such as Excite (250 million pages indexed), should provide adequate results. Index size starts to matter when your search is more specialized.

Overall, my recommendation is for Google. Not only does it consistently outperform other search engines in benchmark tests, its search page is also clutter-free - better for students easily distracted by a plethora of portal links. To be sure of porn-free results, they may also like to try ah-ha or cleansearch.

Hotlinks:
www.google.com
www.cleansearch.com
www.altavista.com
www.ask.com
www.excite.com
www.webtop.com