Sample Searches: Yahoo, AltaVista, InfoSeek Ultra

Biology

Practice Searches: Yahoo; AltaVista; Metacrawler
Yahoo

WHAT it searches: 4 areas of Yahoo's database:

Yahoo! Categories
Yahoo! Web Sites
Yahoo!'s Net Events & Chat
Most Recent News Articles

HOW it ranks:

Multiple Keyword Matches
Document Section Weighting: Documents matching words found in the Title are ranked higher than those found in its Body or URL.
Generality of Category: (more general is ranked higher than more specific categories)

genetic cloning	Categories: Sites:
"genetic cloning"	Categories: Sites:
"genetic engineering"	Categories: Sites:
reproduc* clon* genetic* NOTE: Retrieves reproduce, reproduction, clone(s), cloning, genetic(s)	Categories: Sites:
experiment* "genetic engineering" NOTE: will find pages with experiment, experiments, or experimenting, etc. and the phrase genetic engineering	Categories: Sites:
"genetic cloning" +curriculum NOTE: forces curriculum to be on the page	Categories: Sites:
biotechnology "genetic engineering"	Categories: Sites:
Click on CATEGORY Science: Biology -- Click on "Search Just This Category" and search for biotechnology education	Categories: Sites:
title: biotechnology NOTE: only pages biotechnology in title	Categories: Sites:

Suggested Search Strategies:

Learn one or two search engines WELL.

Use the right tool for the kind of information needed:

Broad topic coverage / Companies: Yahoo, DogPile, MetaFind, SavvySearch

Literary documents or Published papers: HotBot

URL, graphic, domain: AltaVista's url:, domain: searching

Broad range of hits or FAQ: Infoseek Ultra, DogPile, MetaFind

Usenet coverage: DejaNews

Mailing Lists Liszt, PAML

Shareware: CNETs shareware.com (http://www.shareware.com/)

When using a query made up of more than two words, make sure and put the most IMPORTANT term first in the query, as some of the search engines will rank pages by this.

Searching for phrases will be much easier if you enclose them in quotation marks (in most search engines.)

If you don't find what you seek in the top 10-20 hits, change your query, or move to another search engine.

AltaVista

WHAT it searches:

The WWW (as indexed by AltaVista)
Usenet Newsgroups

HOW it ranks:

Use the "ranking" field to control how it ranks-- if the ranking field is left blank, no ranking will be applied and the results will be in no particular order.

reproduction	Sites:
reproduct* clon* NOTE: gets hits for clone, cloning AND reproduction, reproductive	Sites:
"genetic cloning" +research NOTE: Forces "research" to appear in the site, and places more importance on the term.	Sites:
"genetic cloning" -education Excludes "education" from the results	Sites:
"genetic cloning" reproduc*	Sites:
"genetic engineering" ethic* NOTE: Retrieves "genetic engineering" as a phrase, AND, ethic, ethics, ethical, or ethically	Sites:
cloning -reproduction NOTE: Using the "-" excludes pages containing the word reproduction	Sites:
biotechnology cloning Then click REFINE and require cloning, reproductive and exclude several of the other choices	Sites:
title: reproduc* clon* NOTE: only pages with reproduction, reproductive; clone; cloning in title	Sites:
title: cloning -reproduction NOTE: only pages with cloning in title (reproduction NOT in title)	Sites:
url:cloning NOTE: only pages with cloning in URL (web address)	Sites:

Metacrawler

http://www.metacrawler.com

Metacrawler a Meta-Search Engine, which means that it will run your search query in more than one search engine. Metacrawler submits this data simultaneously to each search engine that it is configured to use and returns the merged results

human reproduction	Sites:
cloning	Sites:
reproduction clon* research	Sites:
"genetic cloning"	Sites:
"genetic cloning" reproduction	Sites:
+human reproduction cloning	Sites:

BC, RF 10/97

Revised BC 1/98

12/4/98
Brittney Chenault
Livingston Lord Library