Web Searching

Web Indexes: Introduction | Exploration

Thus far, you have been examining web resources that are collected by machines. While many of the "hits" returned by the search engines are useful, you have undoubtedly noticed that some are totally unrelated to the topic that you entered. The root of the problem lies in the computers that collected the links in the first place. Computers just aren’t able to read between the lines to determine what the creator of the website was trying to present. They just convert the text to a numerical value and store that in the database. When you query the database, the search engine returns everything with the same numerical value as the text that you entered. Wouldn’t it be great to have a real live human look at the webpage first to see if it is related to the topic that you entered?

That is the concept behind a web index. Webpages are submitted by their creators or by users who have found the webpage. Human reviewers examine the webpage, decide if it has merit and then add it to the appropriate category on the web index.

The broad categories of web indexes offer another option for web searching. Often you will have only a general idea of the topic. A web index can suggest other related topics that you may not have yet considered.

Most Web indexes now have a search feature that can be useful for locating related topics. It is important to remember that searching a web index is very different than using a web search engine. In most cases, a web index search engine only searches the web index itself, not the entire web. However, since the webpages in the web index have all been reviewed, the returns are often more useful that those returned in a global web search.

Examine some web indexes and see how they compare with your previous search engine and parallel search engine explorations. You are welcome to use the search features of the web index but should also examine the broad categories for categories and subcategories related to your chosen topic.

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