Sex & the Search Engine

[cadieux at librarybook.com]

Greg, you're impressive, really!  Thanks for taking the time to add some
clarity.  

To me, it just seems that this search engine business gets more complex
with each passing thread--which supports the real thrust of my original
post, which was that it is the informed LIBRARIAN who is best positioned to
help others make sense of the web, and actually find what they're looking for.

Search engines can be used efficaciously, but achieving the very best
results takes some thought.  And it's here that librarians can fill the
void, and provide real assistance to the eager patron who expectantly types
in "superbowl" and awaits a precise response to whatever it is she/he was
thinking.

Attention patrons!  When mind reading's needed (as it often is), go for the
reference interview first, not a search engine.

Joseph Cadieux
Director
Kent Memorial Library
Suffield, CT 06078
cadieux at suffield-library.org  

At 02:57 PM 1/23/98 -0800, you wrote:
>	In terms of AltaVista's performance, I assume the original search of the
>single word "superbowl" was done in the Advanced search mode, since that is
>the only way to include the date qualifier that Joseph mentioned of
>limiting to sites after 21/Dec/97. When using AltaVista advanced search
>mode, there is no relevancy ranking done UNLESS a search term is put in the
>Ranking box. Thus, the irrelevant sites that may have only included a
>single term can come up first. If you do the same search and put
>"superbowl" in the Ranking box, the results are more relevant.
>	As to the Free Nude Celebs site, note that AltaVista gives the date for
>that page as 22-Dec-97. If you go to that page and ask for page
>information, the page has been updated on Jan. 19. (It also has a meta
>http-equiv="refresh" tag which points to another page, although neither
>page currently contains the word "superbowl".) So Nick is most likely
>correct that the content of the page has changed since AltaVista last
>indexed it.
>	There are plenty of problems with the Web search engines, but they work
>best at finding unique words, phrases, or combinations of terms rather than
>broad subjects. A directory like Yahoo! or even search engines with a
>subject directory component work far better for subject searches such as
>the Super Bowl or Windows 98. Try either topic in AltaVista's Browse by
>Subject (which uses the Looksmart directory) and the results are much more
>on target.
>
>+ + + + + + + + + + + + +  +    +        +                +         
>+  Greg R. Notess, Reference Librarian       	406-994-6563 
>+  Montana State University-Bozeman Library    	406-994-2851 fax
>+  Bozeman, MT 59717-3320                      	align at montana.edu
>+            Search Engine Showdown at http://imt.net/~notess/search/
>+ + + + + +
>
>
>At 10:02 AM 1/23/98 -0800, Alis Whitt wrote:
>>
>. . .
>
>>I tried the search you described below.  I can't even locate "superbowl" 
>>in the HTML code of some of these sites.  The third "relevant" site in
>>AltaVista (free nude celebs at http://onewebstreet.com/total/index.html)
>>does not have "superbowl" in the code -- anywhere. Up to now, I've at
>>least been able to provide users with a logical explanation for why they
>>get sex when they ask for superbowl (meta tags, white words on a white
>>background, etc.).  What's up here? 
>>
>>On Fri, 23 Jan 1998 cadieux at librarybook.com wrote:
>>
>>> Jan. 23, 1998
>>> 
>>> This morning I attempted a standard AltaVista search on "superbowl."
>>> I queried for hits from 21/Dec/97 and later.
>>> 
>>> For "superbowl" none of the top 5 sites had anything significant to do
with
>>> this year's superbowl.  Two of the top five hits were sites offering
>>> subscriptions to nude picture archives.
>
>