1/25/25, 11:33 AM Searching the Web Effectively

Searching the Web

Effectively
You’ve most likely googled something today, and if you did,
your search is one of over six billion daily searches. Let’s
look at how to search the web effectively.

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Using Search Engines

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Objective 3.11 Describe the types of tools used to search ACOMB.E...
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the web and summarize strategies used to refine search

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results.
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How do search engines work?

Google is the world’s most popular search engine—a set of

programs that searches the web for keywords (specific words
you wish to look for or query) and then returns a list of the
sites on which those keywords are found. Search engines have
three components:
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1. The first component is a program called a spider, which

constantly collects data on the web, following links in

websites and reading web pages. Spiders get their name
because they crawl over the web using multiple legs to
visit many sites simultaneously.

2. As the spider collects data, the second component of

the search engine, an indexer program, organizes the

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data into a large database.
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3. When you use a search engine, you interact with the

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third component: the search engine software. This

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software searches the indexed data, pulling out relevant
information according to your search. @M
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Bits & Bytes
Maintain Your Privacy While Searching the
Web

Privacy is important to many people, but creating a

private online experience is not always an easy task.
Although you can use the privacy or incognito

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mode of your web browser, these only disable your

browsing history and web cache so that data
generated from your searches can’t be retrieved
later. DuckDuckGo is different—this search engine
doesn’t collect your personal browsing information
to share with third parties for marketing purposes.
And although most search engines sell your search
term information to third parties, which then use
OT DISdisplay
that information toNgenerate TR ads and
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recommendations on pages you visit, DuckDuckGo

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doesn’t sell your search terms to other sites.

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Moreover, DuckDuckGo doesn’t save your search
history. Using DuckDuckGo eliminates third-party
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The resulting list appears in your web browser as a list of hits
—sites that match your search.

Why don’t I get the same results from all search engines?

Each search engine uses a unique program, or algorithm, to

formulate the search and create the resulting index of related
sites. In addition, search engines differ in how they rank the

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search results. Most search engines rank search results based

on the frequency of the appearance and location of the
queried keywords in websites. This means that sites that
include the keywords in their URL or site name will most
likely appear at the top of the results list. An important part
of a company’s marketing strategy is search engine
optimization (SEO): designing the website to ensure that it
ranks near the top of search results.

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How do I search just O B I
D for images and videos?

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With the increasing popularity of multimedia, search engines

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help you search the web for digital images as well as audio
and video files. Select Images on the Google search page or
enter google.com/images in your browser. Similarly,
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google.com/videos allows you to search Google for videos.

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How else can I customize
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In addition to being able to search for videos and images,
search engines allow you to restrict search results by time.
Google provides additional search functionality specific to
the type of search being conducted through the Search Tools
feature (Figure 3.14a). For example, when searching for
videos, you can continue to customize by Any time, Any
quality, or Any duration; if searching for images, Search

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Tools enables you to restrict the search by Size, Color, Type,

Time, or Usage rights. By selecting the Settings link on
Google’s search page, you can access an Advanced Search
form (Figure 3.14b) through which you can further narrow
your search results by language, region, specific terms, usage
rights, or file type.

Figure 3.14

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(a) Google Search tools and
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VAAdvanced ZA form offer ways to
Search
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narrow search results. T E US E O
(Courtesy Google Inc.)

Can I use voice commands to search the web?

Voice-activated digital assistants such as Siri and Google

Assistant have become standard on smartphones. Cortana
and Siri are available on computers with Windows 11 and
macOS Sierra, respectively, and Google Assistant can be run
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from any Chrome browser. Each assistant offers voice-

activated capabilities to search files and the web, get
directions, and create reminders. Google Assistant and
Cortana have predictive search capabilities; they can
recognize a user’s repeated actions and searches and, using
stored data, offer relevant and predictive information. This
might include alerts for upcoming flights, news stories
relevant to your interests, travel time to your next
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appointment, and otherNinformation deemed relevant to you.
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Are there search engines that offer more specialized

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results?

Search engines differ according to which sites they search.

For instance, Google and Bing search nearly the entire web,
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whereas specialty search engines search only sites that are

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relevant to a particular topic or industry. There
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search engines like Google F ZA focuses on
IVATScholar,Owhich
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academic research, or Wolfram Alpha, a computational
search engine that formats and returns information instead of
just links. If you can’t decide which search engine is best, you
may want to try a metasearch engine. Metasearch engines,
such as Dogpile, search other search engines rather than
individual websites.

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Why do I get suggestions before finishing my search

request?

Google and other search engines offer suggested searches as

you type. For example, typing in the term chocolate will
bring up search terms for chocolate chip cookies, chocolate
cake recipe, chocolate mousse, and chocolate-covered
pretzels. These terms are based on your own previous
searches as well as popular T DISTby
NOsearches R other people. Search
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suggestions are alsoDbased on what is currently popular. In

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2023 typing in corona brings up various search suggestions

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about the coronavirus, but prior to 2020, that same term
might have brought up suggestions relating to Corona beer.
Of course, you can ignore these suggestions and continue @M

typing in your intended search term, but if one of the

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suggestions matches
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typing and select thePsuggested

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Can I refine my key terms for better results?

You’ve no doubt searched for something on Google and

gotten a list of hits that includes thousands—even millions—
of web pages that have no relevance to the topic you’re
interested in. Boolean operators can help refine a search.
Boolean operators are words such as AND, NOT, and OR

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that describe the relationships between keywords in a search.

With the simple addition of a few words or constraints, you
can narrow your search results to a more manageable and
more meaningful list. Other strategies can help refine your
searches when entering your search keywords:

Search for a phrase. To search for an exact phrase,

place quotation marks around your keywords. The
search engine will look for onlyTthose
DI websites that
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contain the words in that IB
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you searched the phrase ford was an explorer, the

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results would reflect web pages about the Ford Motor

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Company and, in particular, the Ford Explorer model.
However, if you put quotes around the phrase, the
results are far fewer, and all include the exact phrase
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“ford was an explorer.” The quotation marks

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guarantee that search results R

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phrase.

Search within a specific website. To search just a

specific website, you can use the search keyword, then
site: followed by the website’s URL. For example,
searching with processor site: www.wired.com returns
results about processors from the Wired magazine

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website. The same method works for entire classes of

sites in a given top-level domain or country code.

Use a wild card. The asterisk (*) is a wild card, or

placeholder, feature that is helpful when you need to
search with unknown terms. Another way to think
about the wild card search feature is as a “fill in the
blank.” For example, searching with Congress voted *
on the * bill might bring up an article about the
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voted no on theIBhealthcare
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members of Congress who
bill or a different article about the members of Congress

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who voted yes on the energy bill.

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Evaluating Websites
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Objective 3.12 Describe how to evaluate a website to

ensure it is appropriate to use for research purposes.

How can I make sure a website is appropriate to use for

esearch?

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When you’re using the Internet for research, you cannot

ssume that every web article you find is accurate and
ppropriate to use. The following is a list of questions to
onsider before you use an Internet resource; the answers to
hese questions will help you decide whether you should
onsider a website to be a good source of information:

Authority: Who is the author of the article or the

NOT isDwell
sponsor of the site? If the author
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ISTknown or the
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site is published by a reputable
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news source (such as

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The New York Times), you can feel more confident

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using it as a source than if you are unable to locate such
information.

Bias: Is the site biased? The purpose of many websites is

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to sell products or services or to persuade rather than

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inform. These sites, though useful in some situations,
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present a biased point of view. ELook O
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several sets of facts or consider opinions from several
sources.

Relevance: Is the information on the site current?

Material can last a long time on the web. Some research
projects (such as historical accounts) depend on older
records. However, if you are researching a current topic
that is evolving, you need to look for the most recent
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sources. Therefore, look for a date on information to

make sure it’s current.

Audience: For what audience is the site intended?

Ensure that the content, tone, and style of the site
match your needs. You probably wouldn’t want to use
information from a site geared toward teens if you’re
writing for adults, nor would you use a site that has a
casual style and tone for serious research.
N O T DI S T R
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Links: Are the links available and appropriate?

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out the links provided on the site to determine whether

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they’re still working and appropriate for your needs.
Don’t assume that the links provided are the only
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on your topic as well. You should also be able to find
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the same information on at least three reputable

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websites to help verify that R
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If you’re still unsure whether an article or website is

legitimate, fact-check article details by using sites such as
Factcheck.org, Snopes, and PolitiFact. If you want to check
whether an image has been altered to represent something
untrue, try using Google’s reverse image search
(images.google.com) as shown in Figure 3.15.

Figure 3.15
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Google’s Reverse Image Search

(Courtesy of Google Inc.)

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Why isn’t Wikipedia a reliable source for research?

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The idea behind content that is managed and edited by many

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users, such as that found on Wikipedia and other large public
wikis, is that the group will keep the content current and
valid. However, because wikis are publicly editable, they
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can’t be trusted completely. If a user adds erroneous content,

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the community of users

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used Wikipedia as a source,EyouUS E
may have referenced
erroneous content before it was corrected. To help address
these concerns, Wikipedia has implemented tighter access
controls, requiring users who want editing privileges to
register with the site, but the risks remain. Citizendium,
another open wiki encyclopedia, requires contributors to
provide real names and sign an ethics pledge, and all postings
are monitored.

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