What comes to mind? Probably the ubiquitous and proverbial Search Engine. Sites such as WEBCRAWLER, LYCOS and the new NORTHERN LIGHT are useful for generating a large number of sites which contain a certain key word. They can also be frustrating. Many of the links (possibly most of them) will either be "dead sites" or produce the key words in a context which is completely irrelevant to the topic of the search. Here are some alternatives to search engines.

Web Indexes

Indexes are best used for finding a range of sites relating to a particular topic. Indexes are often very current due to the fact that they are compiled by editors. There is a down-side, in that they are subject to editorial judgements which could exclude the specific information for which you're looking. http//www.yahoo.com YAHOO is the prototypical Web Index. (Net Author has been selected for inclusion in the YAHOO database of writer sites. Topics are sorted into channels.) YAHOO is very comprehensive--but navigation may be difficult.

<http//about.com> ABOUT is conveniently sorted channels are listed on the front page in alphabetical order. <http//www.vlib.org/> WEB VIRTUAL LIBRARY is also sorted into topics on the front page. Links for assorted sub-topics are also listed.

Searching News Groups

<http//www.deja.com> DEJA is to the usenet news/discussion groups as YAHOO is to web indexes they were the first, and they are the most comprehensive. DEJA may be especially useful for gauging popular sentiment, or soliciting current information in real-time mode. You will be required to sort out navigational links from an abundance of advertisements. There are numerous community chat groups available through the site which concentrate conversations topically.

<http//www.altavista.com/> ALTA VISTA is a hybrid site, including indexed material, a search engine which combs the usenet news groups as well as the Internet-at-large, utilitarian gateway features. As is often the case with attempts from a one-size-fits-all philosophy, ALTA VISTA does some things better than others. Try it before you give up a search. You may be pleasantly surprised.

SEARCH SITE SHORTCUTS

Search engines are notorious for returning 99,123 matches for <whatever>. Of course 99,122 of those matches are probably unrelated to the intentions of your search.

If this has been your frustration, here's help. Most popular search engines allow searches to be conditioned with symbols. This allows the best matches for particular groups of words, or for key words to be assigned a hierarchy.

To group words together, use quotes "key words". (Be sure to enclose the complete group within the quote marks, and be sure their are no spaces between the word and the open/close quote mark.) Sites which allow this condition include Yahoo, Hotbot, Northern Light, Excite, Webcrawler, Deja, Infoseek, Altavista and Lycos. I believe Goto.com does as well, but I am not yet able to verify this as true.

If you wish to make one key word more important than another, some sites allow the use of the plus sign +<keyword>. The plus sign should be next to the keyword, with no spaces intervening.

If you wish to be sure that all your key words are given equal weight, you can use the + with each word +key +word.

Robert Marcom, 1999