Selecting the Proper Web Database

No two web databases are alike, as you have seen throughout this tutorial. They differ in the following aspects:

Size of database

Small databases are usually attached to pick lists
Medium-sized databases will usually have pages that the larger ones miss
Larger databases are more difficult to search accurately

Type of pages indexed

All pages - Good for most searched
Popular pages - These are useful for finding pages on "hot" topics
Quality control - Nice for academic work or creation of resources for someone else

Method of indexing

Full-text - Good for specific-term searching
Human - Works in with quality control and pick lists

User access to the database

Pick Lists - A good place to start
Search Engines - Much more powerful and much larger selection of pages

Search Engine capabilities

Boolean - Many engines do not allow Boolean searching
Pseudo-Boolean - Most engines do allow this "natural language" method of searching
Phrases - The most powerful way to find what you are looking for
Term Weighting - When usable, this can help your ranked output be more relevant
Truncation - Most allow some form of truncation, but not all

Presentation of Results

Relevance information - some databases tell you the number of terms matched and give you a relevance score for each document
Abstract - The blurb you get about the page can be the address up to a human written, multi-sentence abstract about the page.
Continuing the search - Some databases make it easy to "find more like this one".

As you can see, there are many variables in a web database, and different types of searches demand different tyeps of web databases. You can't use the same database for all of your searching just like you can't use the same reference book for all of your questions. You need to select the proper tool for your searches - and that is where AskScott comes into play.

The role of AskScott in web searching

AskScott has three features that make it a useful tool to you in your searching.

You can use the interactive dialog to select the proper web database depending on your topic
Once you navigate to a page, AskScott provides you with a very handy reminder of what features that search engine has and how you use them, along with the place to type your query where possible. (You will find that as you use more search engines, you will really appreciate this feature of AskScott).
As search engines change, grow, and get better or worse, AskScott will change to reflect this. If a new database appears on the scene or the technique for using a database changes, that will be changed in AskScott. So, AskScott will save you time.

AskScott is a unique tool, and one that plays an important role - the role of a librarian in helping you use the proper reference tool for your search request.

Places to learn more

If you are interested in an individual search engine, look for the online help attached to that search engine. That is a good way to learn the differences - but take any comparisons listed there with a grain of salt, as each engine will give you reasons why their database/search engine is superior. However, they don't talk about the disadvantages.

Some of the best tools for learning more about the Web search tools are Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch and Greg Notess's Search Engine Showdown.

Conclusion

I hope this search tutorial was helpful to you, and will help you in not only your web searching, but searching at your local library. If you felt this was helpful or you'd like to use this in a classroom setting, please drop me a note - I'd really appreciate any feedback you have to give on this tutorial.

If you're still having trouble, some more searching examples are provided to help you go from a search request to the search terms.

You can also go back to the tutorial start page or go directly to AskScott!