Our Favorite research Tool: Search Engines

Posted on March 12, 2012 by mbottaro

Especially within the past few years search engines have become more popular than ever.  Take Google and Bing for instance.  With data taken from Andrew Leibman’s article “How Search Engines Work,” We learn of the many different kinds of computer searching tools.  First, lets talk about web crawlers.  Web crawlers are “single-purpose applications that fetch data from the Web.”  They scan the Web searching for hyperlinks and categorize them to look for the best results.  Since speed is crucial, web crawlers begin by searching the most popular Web pages first.  It’s a very complicated process, because the computer has to go through any steps and with so little time.  The computer must now break the data from the hyperlinks by encoding (“converting data from ine form to another”) and hashing (“converting words and characters into abbreviated alphnumeric value”).  with one word, we can find hundreds of thousands of results, but with the help of web crawlers, encoding and hashing, we can break information down to its simplest form and get the best reslut of information that we want.

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CRACK SHOT SEARCHING.

Posted on March 12, 2012 by ragoo8111

I remember searching by using certain keywords and  becoming overwhelmed by the results . I was now more confused than before .  My perception of my search topic was now tarnished with a million other irrelevant suggestions. In my ignorance I never made the connection between Databases and search engines . Thank you Mr Badke for enlightening me on the hierarchy of my searches and the importance of the keywords. Arming me with the knowledge of the formulas to unlocking Keywords and refining the search. Are we searching the Internet here, or are we playing a spy game? Because of the magnitude of information, and data on the WWW. we are forced to come up with formulas and techniques to refine our results . Less is more and eliminating the known “garbage in garbage out” is our friend indeed . Keywords have been known to do irreparable  harm through irrelevance,  in a way contributing to many man hours being wasted. Thanks to the Boolean standards of searches the ” or, and, not,” we can find relief in a more trustworthy search result. No thanks to Google and Yahoo here , they operate in the realm of flat keywords pulling results without the order of their hierarchies. In a nutshell ,”A whole new can of worms”. More specialty search tools have sprung up to overcome this, Carrot2, Quintura and Google wonder wheel to name a few clustering tools as they have been so aptly named. Of course this industry keeps coming up with alternative solutions to this refining issue , ultimately it will always need your input and witt to navigate into the right result at the right time….

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Keywords and Databases

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Liza

Reading Chapter 3 of Research Strategies was a refreshing break from the much more technical readings – while it’s nice to know the nitty-gritty of how search engines like Google and Bing work, the information from the two links was just too much to absorb and frankly, too “technical.”

On the other hand, Badke’s approach to discussing keywords and databases and explaining how they work is easier to understand. While he doesn’t get very technical as to how searching for keywords in databases work (just check out the link to the Liddy article!), he still explains the concept of keywords and gives a tutorial on how to effectively use databases, especially ones like EBSCO, where users are allowed to narrow down their keywords with “and,” “or,” or “not.” I’ve used EBSCO before but I didn’t know how to utilize it properly, but thanks to Badke now I know how to search for keywords more effectively.

I also enjoyed reading about keyword hierarchies. Many people often search for keywords without realizing that the context of the word itself is very important: I could easily look up  “baby” and there are many contexts in which the word could be used: human baby? baby carriage? Baby Boom? Having this pointed out will definitely help refine searching for keywords in the future. It certainly would have saved me a lot of time having to trudge through so many articles because I looked up a keyword without paying attention to how it could be interpreted.

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Database Searching with Keywords and Hierarchies

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Suly Paredes

Ever since I learned to punch keys on a computer, I always wondered how things were created to be read electronically. Taking programming class really gave me a better view on the binary language. In Chapter 3 of Badke’s novel, he states how a man named George Boole ended up coming up with some formula for computers to be able to read. If it wasn’t for George, Tim Berners-Lee wouldn’t have had the succes he has to expand the World Wide Web. It takes time to create a formula for a bunch of keys just to be recognized on screen. Using arithmetic for an entire system must’ve taken time and dedication just for the entire world to be able to communicate today. I find it interseting with changing the english language into symbols such as “OR” is “||” and “AND” is “&&”. Not many people know of the database searching and how it works, but all I know is that computers will end up having a mind of its own, at the rate its evolving.

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how a search engine works

Posted on March 12, 2012 by David R

We all know that search engines have crazy algorithms for figuring out how to produce desired results when individuals search the web, but can we confidently say that we are getting the best results? The article makes it seem that while search engines such as Google have it down to a science, there are still elements that throw the system off when someone searches for something completely out of the ordinary. Algorithms may be good for the general users but aren’t 100% guaranteed. Everyone has a favorite search engine but I feel that its best to use multiple search engines to broaden ones search results and to account for those odd items we may search and which the algorithms can’t guarantee.

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Search Engines

Posted on March 11, 2012 by itohanedoloyi

It seems as if these search engines determines what our search results look like, considering that if someone were to search for networking sites, their result would be based upon sites frequently visited such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.  And in terms of Google redefining their search engines so they help us out, maybe isn’t anyways the best help. In searching for things online, Google often shows links that do not really pertain to my actual search, but will have similar words to the ones used in the search box. In reference to what Badke said about clustering search tools, it is often difficult to really find what you’re looking for if the results you get are clustered to say the least. Then in the end, you end up going to sites either off the topic you originally searched for.

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How the Net was won

Posted on March 11, 2012 by matty65

Badke does a great job of deciphering search engines and how they work. This chapter of the text is full of very useful information. I actually read it twice. I knew that with your typical search engine, such as Google, it was possible to do an “AND” search and an “OR” search. Combining the two had never really occurred to me much less the addition of “NOT”, Whoooo! hold them there horses! Are we learning a new, better way surf the net? I particularly found useful Badke’s information on hierarchies and how paying attention to them can enhance your search results. I think that we all subconsciously use some sort of hierarchy when doing research but approaching research deliberately from this angle I found to be something that I have yet to try.

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Keywords

Posted on March 11, 2012 by egonzalez

In chapter 3 “Database searching with keywords and hierarchies” Badke helps to inform on how to carry out a more precise and accurate search using keywords. His analogy of the “keyword” to “friends you trust only to a certain point” was quite clever and I immediately understood what he was trying to convey. Which is that “keywords” can be extremely helpful, but only to an extent and only if there used the correct way. As obvious as it now sounds, it never occurred to me to do a “OR” search during my research, I would just do twice the work and search separately. I have used the “AND” way of search, but this often lead me to not enough results and sometimes none, which only lead me to become frustrated. Badke pointed out that I was probably using to many words during my “AND” search and that it’s best to limit the words used, otherwise your eliminating possible matches.

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Behind the Scenes: Search Engines

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Ian Pei

After reading Andrew Leibman’s article, How Search Engines Work, it’s interesting to see how much goes on for a search engine to work efficiently for it’s users. From the software to the manpower, there’s actually quite a lot that goes into making Search Engines more compatible with users. Seriously, who knew that Google were performing projects and experiments on us while we were using their product just so they can improve our experience? Even Google researches their consumers just so they can get an idea of what a specific user is generally looking for because of what the user has searched in the past. Just to imagine the time that goes into encoding, hashing, and using web crawlers just amazes me in some way. Yet this made me think about how much they look into my web history and privacy just so they can make it more to my liking. Would you consider this an invasion of privacy? Or just a necessity to make online experiences better?

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Badke Chapter 3:Database Searching With Keywords and Hierarchies

Posted on March 11, 2012 by cj

As Badke stated in his reading “A database is any collection of data that can be retrieved using organized search procedures.” I like what i was reading in this chapter because i always use Google to search for information that i want to read or is interested in learning more about, as Badke had said also in his chapter when you search for something in Google it gives you a list full of links that you are looking for and you may not even know which one to click on. And that is true because when i search for something in Google and i think it’s related to what i am looking for it’s actually not. In my opinion database as we all know is being used all around the United States, even when we search for things on our computers, laptops, cell phones, Ipods etc, we are still looking for data for our own information on what we would like to look up and know more about. I didn’t even know that Keywords can be useful but not be helpful at the same time until Badke broke it down and explained it more in depth on what it actually does. Regardless on what we do database will always be with us, but we just have to understand the concept of it and use it in the right way when it comes towards searching for things on the internet, our cell phones, and more.

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