Using Web Browsers
1. Click on the "Home" button in your browser.
a. What is the title and URL of the web page you are defaulted to?
(My home computer doesn't have a home page - I find that annoying, so - at work) Title: "English" URL: http://english.gmu.edu
b. Why did this appear? How can you change this default setting so that another web page
automatically loads when you launch the web browser?
The home page appears as previously defined by the user of the browser
(or, if the broswer was just downloaded and/or never changed default settings) by the company that made the broswer.
To define the home page:
For Firefox: Tools --> Options --> General Tab --> Type in/copy in what web site you want your home page to be and when to show it.
2. Can you change the appearance of web pages within your browser (e.g., the font face and size)? If so,
how? Why would you want to?
Yes. One may zoom in and out of the page, zoom in only on the text, change the character encoding, and change page style. These are available (in Firefox) under the "View" drop-down menu.
One may also change the default text font and size (in Firefox) by going to Tools --> Options --> Content --> Choose the font and the size you want to be your defaults.
Zoom in and out is useful for visually impaired users; zoom in and out only on text is useful when the default text size of the page is particularly small.
Changing character encoding is particularly useful when the browser doesn't recognize automatically that the text encoding in the page is, for example, Cyrillic and for Windows.
Changing page style to "No style" will allow the user to see the web page without all the style sheets. It may be useful when the web page is so poorly designed that it's unreadable with current style sheets, so bringing it to the basic white background, black font style increases readability.
Changing font and font size is useful if a) you hate Times New Roman or other default fonts; b) you prefer a smaller or larger text size on your screen.
3. What's the default search engine associated with your web browser? How do you get to it?
My default search engine is Google.
Left-click on the current icon of the search bar on the right-hand side. Select "Manage Search Engines..." on the bottom of the drop-down menu. Move preferred search engines up and down or remove them using buttons on the right. To add more search engines to the list, click on the "Get more search engines" link below the current search engine list.
Searching the Web
4. Head to Google (http://www.google.com).
a. In the search box, type in learning to make web pages and click on the "Search" button. How many
matches did you get?
Search
About 90,400,000 results (0.17 seconds)
Visit a couple of the sites in the search results list. Can you estimate how many of the searches
actually relate to learning to make web pages?
One of the top 20 results was actually someone's web project for teachers, students, and librarians. So if at least .5% of the results are irrelevant to what I'm looking for, that would mean that at least 05*90,400,000=4,520,000 results are irrelevant to my search. It's probably more than half a percent, though, since Google is supposed to display the msot relevant results first. It is tehrefore likely that the majority of the search results is irrelevant.
b. Return to the front page of Google. In the search box, type in "learning to make web pages" (with
quotation marks) and click on the "Search" button. How many matches did you get?
Link to a couple of the sites in the search results list. Can you estimate how many of the searches
actually relate to learning to make web pages?
About 29,900 results (0.47 seconds)
In the top 20, all of them related to web design. I wouldn't imagine all of them would be relevant to my search, but it should be a fairly small percentage - as in, less than 10%, perhaps.
Repeat the same tasks for the following websites:
5. Are the number of hits consistent across search engines? If not, what do you think accounts for the differences? After looking at each of the above search engines, in what cases would you use a search engine that is not your current default (most likely Google)?
No, they were not consistent, although Bing and Altavista had the same number. I guess the ways these search engines "crawl" the web are different: the way "crawler" programs decide whether a page is relevant to a search differs from engine to engine.
As for engines I'd use: for searches with quotation marks, Google is the best option. Altavista and Teoma are the best engine for searches without quotation restrictions, and Teoma provides a different set of pages, so I guess I'd like to use both and compare.
6. Take a look at Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/). Is this a search engine? If not, what would you call it? If you decide that it is, list the reasons that you would classify it as a search engine.
I wouldn't call it just a search engine. I'd say something like "enhanced search engine". If we assume that a search engine provides a number of relevant links, Wolfram Alpha does that: refers you to Google, for example, and other links that you mind find useful with your query "in mind". At the same time, it tries to analyze your query and look for links, data, and tools that would help you better understand your own query, learn more about it, and find useful tools to use that knowledge. Search engines don't provide those tools, they just give information. Which is why I'd prefer to call Wolfram Alpha an enhanced search engine, or give it a name of this sort.
Using Metasearch Sites
Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com
MetaCrawler
http://www.metacrawler.com
Mamma
http://www.mamma.com
7. Head to Dogpile or to MetaCrawler.
a. What is the main difference between a metasite and a regular search site?
Dogpile "stacks" a couple of search engines together and combines their results. "Dogpile aggregates the most relevant searches from Google, Yahoo! and Bing and delivers them to you in a convenient search package." (taken from here).
b. Do a search for learning to make web pages. How many matches did you get? How are the
matches organized?
I couldn't find the number of matches. They are organized based on Dogpile's own understanding of relevancy. Web pages say whether a page was found on multiple or a single search engine.
c. Link to a couple of the sites in the search results list. Can you estimate how many of the searches
actually relate to learning to make web pages?
Interestingly enough, 2 of the top 20 were not relevant: that means at least 10% isn't useful for this search.
8. Next, head to Mamma (http://www.mamma.com).
a. Do a search for learning to make web pages. How many matches did you get? How are the
matches organized?
176,000,000. They are organized based on Mamma's relevancy algorithms.
b. How do the matches on Mamma differ from the matches you found in search ?
It looked like the majority of those results are actually advertising materials.
Finding Multimedia Elements
9. Either head to one of the search sites we've already used or head to one we haven't yet used and explore
the front page of the site.
a. Is there a way to search specifically for multimedia?
Yes (on Bing).
b. If yes, what specific elements can you search for? What are your options? (If not, try another site!)
Images, maps, videos, music, games.
c. Do a search for a specific element (e.g., your favorite song, a picture of Britney Spears). How many
matches do you get?
"Sims" gives 709,000 videos.
d. Are there any warnings, disclaimers, or other information provided about using the results of your
multimedia searches embedded in the search interface?
If there is any information regarding using Bing video, it isn't easy to see.
Specialized Search Tools
10. In addition to the generalized search tools we have looked at in this module, there are new specialized tools being made available on a near-daily basis. Your final task in this module is to find a search tool for each of the following: