CHAPTER-5

INTERNET SEARCH
 INTRODUCTION

• The internet consist of millions private/public/academic/business and

government networks having local to global scope.
• As compared to searching a database, the search for a document contents
is more terrifying since is not structured.
• We need services of search engines for finding the documents on the
internet.
• When a user enters a query into a search engine, the engine examines it
as index and provides a list of best-matching web pages according to its
ranking criteria.
 Objectives
• In this chapter we study about:
Functions of search engines.
The role of search engine in browsing.
The different search engines.
Uses of search engines.
Functions of E-Commerce.
 Search Engine:
A software application or service used to locate files on an
intranet or the Web, generally accessed with browsers.
 It is needed for the same reason you need a card catalogue in a
library.
There is lots of great and useful information in a library, but it’s
physically impossible to examine all the books personally.
 There are millions of pages and billions of words on the Web
and more are being added.
A Search engine can be defined as a tool to search
these disorganized sources of information available
on the Internet.
Using a search engine is pretty simple.
Just type in the data to be searched, the space
provided at the search engine’s current page, and
click search.
The result will be displayed with information
corresponding to the search in the form of a list of
web-sites that match that word or phrase.
A search engine is a critical tool in finding
information, products and businesses on the web.
 Types of Search Engine:
There are three basic categories of
Search engines
• Primary Search Engines: Such search engines use web crawlers or spiders. Google and
AltaVista are examples of the same.
 A web crawler, or spider, is a type of bot that is typically operated by search engines like Google
and Bing.
 Their purpose is to index the content of websites all across the Internet so that those websites
can appear in search engine results.
 Web Crawler is the first web search engine to provide full text search
• Web Directory: Web directories organize information into categories and subcategories.
Directories differ from search engines in the way they organize information. Yahoo is an
example of Web-directory
 Their purpose is to index the content of websites all across the Internet so that those websites
can appear in search engine results.
• Meta Search Engines: Such search engines pass your queries
to many search engines and web directories and present
summarized results to the users.
• A metasearch engine (or search aggregator) is an online
information retrieval tool that uses the data of a web search
engine to produce its own results.
• Metasearch engines take input from a user and immediately
query search engines for results. Sufficient data is gathered,
ranked, and presented to the users.
• Some of the examples of meta search engines are – Dogpile,
Infind, Metacrawler, Metafind and Metasearch.
Some of the popular Search Engines on the Internet are:

• Google https://www.google.com
• Bing https://www.bing.com
• Yahoo https://search.yahoo.com
• Baidu http://www.baidu.com
• AOL http://www.aol.com
• Ask.com http://www.ask.com
• Excite http://msxml.excite.com
• Lycos http://www.lycos.com
• Indiatimes http://www.indiatimes.com
• Rediff http://www.rediff.com
 Finding Information through Search Engine
Connect to the internet.
Open browser.
Type the address (URL) of the search engine in the browser.
Home page of the search engine opens.
Type the query in the search box, press enter
 Boolean Operator
Boolean Operators AND, OR and NOT are used to connect words and
terms in the query
• AND Operator :AND is the default operator in search engines. So whenever more than one keyword is
typed, the search engine will automatically connect them with the AND operator. This search will
retrieve records with BOTH search terms present. It is used to narrow the search. Example: Wind AND
Fire
OR Operator : By using OR operator search results will contain either one or
several or all of the search terms. It is best used when one want to pull together
results on similar topics. OR operator is used to EXPAND the search.
Example: Wind OR Fire
NOT Operator :It is used to exclude keywords from search. It is best used when
the search is ambiguous. Instead of NOT – (dash) can also be used. NOT operator
is used to narrow the search by eliminating term.

Example: Wind NOT Fire or Wind -Fire

Phrases
Search syntax involves using quotation marks (") around a specific
phrase. Phrases are very useful at narrowing down search results to pages that
contain the exact, specific string of characters written as a phrase.
Example: If "Padma Shri Award Winners 2014" is searched for, the search
results now will only bring back pages that have all these words in the exact
order that is typed them in.
 Different Search Engines :

In brief, here is a quick run-down of some well-

known general topic search engines
• Google: The full form of Google is “Global Organization of Oriented Group
Language of Earth”. It is a powerful tool. It would be practically impossible to
find out the information without Google. It was launched in January 1996 and it
is based on Logical ‘AND’ with 3-D Keyword search operation

• Yahoo!: The word "Yahoo" is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchically

Organized Oracle". It is a web search engine owned by Yahoo. As of February
2015, it is the third largest search engine in the US. Yahoo was launched in
January 1996. It is actually a directory – a subject index. It searches on a subject
or topic and is based on Logical ‘And’ and wildcard after each search word.
• Rediff: Rediff search engine is one of the leading internet portals in
India. Its headquarters are in Mumbai, New Delhi and New York. It was
founded in the year 1996. It maintains a directory categorically and
uses Inktomi search technology. It is the only websites that
appears in the first 100 websites. It is one of the best search tools in
the world. It has been designed to meet the needs of Indians
worldwide.

•Lycos: It is the oldest search engine. It is big, thorough

and comprehensive. It was originally developed in July
1994. It is gradually becoming more like yahoo, acting as
a Web Directory as well as a search engine. It used logical
operation “OR” and customized search.
•
•Indiatimes: It is called an Indian Search Engine. It is powered
by Google. It has divided search into “The Web”, “News”, “Indian
directory” and “Indiatimes Channels” It does not supports “OR”
operators and wildcard entries but supports Logical “AND” based
3-D keyword search plus smart search by Autonomy (A Software).
Web directories that are India-specific are also included.

• E-Commerce
A broad definition of e-commerce is: “The marketing, promoting,
buying & selling of goods electronically, particularly via the Internet”.
A narrower definition is “the trading of goods and services in
which the final order is placed over the Internet”. In fact E-
Commerce is the subset of E-Business.
Types of E-Commerce :
It is necessary to consider the various forms that Internet Commerce
embodies in order to understand the implications for taxation.
E-commerce can be categorized in four ways:

 Business to business (B2B); www.vendome.niit.com

Amazon (providing discounts and shipping facility)
Microsoft was world’s most valuable B2B brand, had a brand
value of over 220 billions US dollars.
 Business to consumer (B2C); www.indiatimes.com
Amazon, flipkart,myntra, snapdeal
 Consumer to business (C2B); www.makemytrip.com
Focus groups, social media, reviews, freelance websites
 Consumer to consumer (C2C); www.ebay.in
Uber,facebook market place
E-Business:

E-business refers to all aspects of a business where technology is

important.
This may include knowledge management, design, and
manufacturing, R&D, procurement, finance, project planning, human
resource planning and the related activities.
 E-commerce is that part of ebusiness that relates directly to sales &
marketing. That is, e-commerce is part of the allencompassing world
of e-business.
E-business is a wider concept that embraces all aspects of the use of
information technology in business.
It includes not only buying & selling but also servicing customers and
collaborating with business partners and often involves integration
across business processes & communication within the organization.
End of chapter 5

Thank you