1.2 Create a search strategy to fully satisfy the client's enquiry

Table of Contents

1. Choosing search terms
2. Structuring an Internet search
   1. Search Engines
   2. Differences between search engines
   3. Compound queries
   4. How search engines work
   5. Metacrawlers
   6. Web directories
   7. Differences between directories and search engines
3. Using portals
4. Using bibliographic databases
5. Frequently-used websites
6. Website suffixes

Web directories

Unlike search engines, web directories do not search for you but are arranged as an alphabetically ordered index to the web, developing into a tree structure of levels of sub-categories. This is somewhat similar to the subject index in a print encyclopedia.

Directories can be very useful in allowing you to home in on the general area of a reference search. However there are countless directory sites, many of which are poorly maintained. Poor maintenance manifests itself with broken links or links to inappropriate material. You should make yourself familiar with the good examples of directories and we will examine some of these now.

General purpose directory sites are provided by many search engines: Google and Yahoo are examples. Most confusingly they show both the categories which you can descend and a search facility which looks like the web search but is in fact used to search the categories.

Let's have a look at some of the major differences between directories and search engines ...