search.skills

Searching the internet is not all about Google! Browse the following lessons and links for more information.
1.) Just because it's on the internet does not mean it's any good. Anyone can make a website. There are no editors to keep the bad stuff out. But not anyone can publish a book - to publish a book it must be approved by an editor. Take a look at the following site and figure out whats wrong. http://home.inreach.com/kumbach/velcro.html Other Kooky sites: http://www.allaboutexplorers.com/explorers/ http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

2.) Just because a site is one of the first that comes up on a "google" search does not mean it's a quality site. There is no one at google monitoring your searches! The first sites that come up on google are there simply because they have many other sites linked into them. You can actually make your site one of the top google sites. [|Click here for Google's explanation of how they search]. If you google "Mr. Moloney" - I come up at number 1 out of 651,000 sites. Take a look at the following site that comes up as the number 3 site (out of over 6 million!) when you punch "martin luther king" into google. What is wrong with this site? Does the author have an agenda? http://www.martinlutherking.org/

3.) Take a look at this site which comes up as number 6 (out of 35 million!) - when you punch "//US government//" into google. http://www.federalbudget.com/ Does this site look like it's fair and objective, or do you think the author has an agenda? Be careful! There are many misleading sites out there! Focus on sites from universities, or PBS, or the discovery channel, or the BBC, sites from reputable organizations.

4.) It's OK to use google - but use it properly. Narrow your search and use //"advanced search"//. For example: if you Google "//US government//" you get over 509 million sites. But if you use advance search and use the //"with the **exact phrase**"// box for "//US government//" you get 51 million sites. 458 million fewer sites than before! You can narrow your search even more by using the //"with **at least one** of the words"// box and the //**"without** the words"// box. For example; if you were researching For the "Executive Branch" of the US government and you did not want any sites with information about "Checks and Balances" you would narrow your sites down to 27,000 - from 509 million!!
 * with **all** of the words ||  ||   ||
 * with the **exact phrase** || US government ||
 * with **at least one** of the words || Executive Branch ||
 * **without** the words || Checks and Balances ||

5.) Other interesting internet sites: The [|"Way Back Machine".] This site lets you look at the history of any site. You can see what the site looked like years ago or when the site was first started.

This site lets you see who created a web site and who it is registered to. [|Easy Who?s.] ([|www.easywhois.com/]) You can get the name, address, email, and even phone number of the person who created the site.