Web search engines/indexes

[Roxanne Missingham]

Thanks for the interesting comments on web search engines - 
when giving any training session I also suggest 
"think before you press" for the most successful result.

I think it's useful to remember that the contents of any web search
tool is not the same as a database on Dialog or a traditional
indexing/abstracting service  - which does make it hard to
figure out which search tool is best for any individual search -
every time I compare with a search across engines (yes
including Hotbot) the results vary hugely by search tool -
very rarely is there much more than a 30% duplication rate
between search tools.

The other thing to remember when searching is that every string
can be indexed - this can cause some confusion in interpreting
results - for example a search of Alta Vista last year for "koala"
revealed the most relevant item as the AMP home
page (AMP is an insurance company).  The page included 
the string "koala.gif" and there were very few few words 
in the page.  It ranked highly as:

        * koala.gif occured near the top of the page
        * koala was one of a small number of strings!

Controlled vocabulary would be wonderful but is a major task for
us itnernationally - think of the cultural differences in the use of
words and our interpretation of meaning -  from wharf labourer,
stevedore and longshoreman to points 9car, traffic, horse....)

regards

Roxanne



 ======================================================
 Roxanne Missingham		phone:  (02) 6242 1659
 Librarian				fax:  (02) 6241 3491
 CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology		email:  r.missingham at dwe.csiro.au
			
 LIB     "Librarians In Black"
 ======================================================