September 2005 — EduNet
Print this article | Email this articleClick here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal
The Art of Effective Web Searching
Server-side bookmarks. Everyone uses bookmarks, but one power search technique is to use a server-side bookmark manager rather than the one stored on your computer. When the user finds great pages, the bookmarks can be saved on a dedicated bookmark server such as del.icio.us (del.icio.us) or LookSmart’s Furl (www.furl.net), or one of the advanced search engines such as A9 (a9.com) or Yahoo!, via their toolbars. Many of these new services also support the capability to tag individual bookmarks with keywords or add extended diary entries that annotate your personal Web as you search.
Tabbed browsing. Web browsers such as Firefox (www.mozilla.org/firefox) and Safari (www.apple.com/safari) support tabbed browsing, which hides new pages in the background of the same window until you need them. This allows the power user to perform a search and preload all of the interesting results in tabs while they work down the list. So, all of the selected pages will be loaded and ready to be read by the time the user is done scanning the list of search results.
Search histories. Another technique is to employ a search engine to track the user’s search history. A permanent, searchable history is invaluable when performing serious research on the Web. In fact, search histories are often better than bookmarks in such cases, because a bookmark only helps the user remember one site at a time,while a search history helps the user remember how and where she found the page, and helps her retrace those steps in the future.
Vertical search. No one general search engine will ever be able to fully capture the richness and complexity of the Web. Medical databases, travel information, and library catalogs are a few examples of vertical search engines that contain highly specialized data in narrow domains. Search syndication protocols such as Amazon.com’s Open- Search (opensearch.a9.com) are helping specialized vertical search engines (e.g.,The Seattle Public Library’s search engine found at www.spl.org) surface their results to other sites to help maximize their accessibility.
The search industry is evolving rapidly, and more tools for information retrieval and information sharing are being developed daily. Search engines are also learning how to personalize results based on the user’s individual habits. They are incorporating more and more of the deep vertical data into their primary search interface, and are learning how to simultaneously serve the novice user, while adding tools and capabilities to empower the most sophisticated users. In the meantime, power users can stay on top of their searches with advanced search techniques such as those above.
DeWitt Clinton is the A9.com software development engineer responsible for leading the search company’s OpenSearch feature, a technology that allows third parties to make their content searchable and the results viewable through their own columns on the A9.com Web site. He has a bachelor’s in computer and political science from Williams College in Massachusetts.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
