Finding Information on the Web I

CS 102

Feb. 23, 2004

Introduction

This lab will help us:

1. Hone our search skills.

2. Compare and contrast a few types of search tools.

Lab

1. Which accesses a larger database of documents, the search engine at Yahoo! or the search engine at Google? Explain your answer. (Don't include Yahoo!'s Web search feature --- only use its subject tree).

2. The connection between dogs and the number 42 was discussed in Section 6.2.1. Go to Yahoo! and, beginning with a search for Douglas Adams fan sites, track down the answer to the question, ``What role does the number 42 play in the lives of all dogs?''

3. Visit FindSpot (www.findspot.com) and read the search tips for AltaVista and Google. Explain how each handles the query

      dogs -cats collies basenjis
   

   If these two search engines accessed the same document database and indexed those documents in the same way, which engine would return more hits for this query? Explain your answer.

4. Compare and contrast the Internet Public Library (www.ipl.org) with ProFusion (profusion.com). What do they have in common? How do they differ? Illustrate your points by visiting IPL and conducting a search on the keyword ``environment.'' How many resources does IPL return? Visit Invisible Web and conduct the same search. How many resources does Invisible Web return? Does it return any of the same resources as IPL?