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Cyber 911 Tiplines The Internet
Finding things online
By now, we are all familiar with the domain names registered by major corporations, such as www.disney.com and www.sony.com and www.nbc.com. (None of us ever had any idea what "dot com" meant, but it's now become a common part of our vocabulary.) But what if you're looking for someone or a company and don't know if they have a Web site? And even if you know they have one, if you don't already know the domain name, how do you find them?
In the early days of the Web, yellow pages books with domain names were published in hard copy, listing categories of sites, the same way a phone book would list types of businesses. These went out of fashion as people learned how to find their way around on their own.
Almost all the yellow pages were replaced by search engines (indices of Web sites) where you can search for Web sites registered with the search engine. Any site could be registered with the search engine. Until then, Internet users would not be able to find your Web site unless they knew your domain name (it's like having an unlisted phone number.) As the search engines matured, they added robot software (called bots, spiders and crawlers), which search the Web to find the Web sites and index them based on the words used in their site.
How do search engines work?
There are two ways to use a search engine - searching by typing a specific word or words joined by a connector, or by using directories, which are divided into different topics.
Web search indices can index pages based on the information contained at hundreds of thousands of sites, and each of those sites have many subsites, documents and graphics (each qualifies as a separate URL file). Their robot spiders are software programs that scour the Web searching for web sites. The spiders search every word at the Web site, and in some cases, all pages linked to from those sites. It then indexes all those sites, based upon the number of search words used and how often they're used.
When you want to search for something specific, you should do a "keyword" search, listing all the words that are necessary to your search. When the search results are displayed for you, the pages with the most matches are listed first. The rest are listed in declining order.
The best thing about using this search method is that you can access many more sites and can customize your search. The worst thing is that your search may turn up umpteen zillion sites if you don't frame it properly. (Trust me . . . I've been there.) You should read the help files at the particular engine to learn how to improve your search results, so you'll get an answer, not a research project.
When you want to do a broader search, or aren't exactly sure of what you're looking for, you should use a directory search. When web sites are registered with a directory-type search engine, people who work for the search engine review the sites and classify them under topics (just like encyclopedias classify information under topics). Directory-type search engines have far fewer web sites categorized than the index sites do, just because it takes much longer to classify them than to just index them electronically by keywords. But when you don't know where to start on a search, the directories can be very helpful.
The directory topics range from very general to very specific, depending on how far down the topic list you go. Once you've found the right topic, a list of web sites that cover the topic will be listed. You can get to those sites by clicking on their titles. Your Web browser will then whisk you away to check out the site. When you want to try another site from the search result list, you just click on the "Back" button of your browser and you're back where you started.
What are the big search engines and how do I chose one over another?
Now there are many search engines on the Web. The most popular ones are: Google, Lycos, Excite, Altavista, Ask Jeeves, Go and Yahoo!
After you've been online for awhile, you'll find that some search engines work better for you than others. You may also find that you'll use one for certain kinds of searches, and others for a different kind of search. Before you start your search, decide what kind of information you need. Indices have many more sites, but you may find that many of them are totally irrelevant. (Bots aren't, after all, as smart as humans, even though they work faster and take shorter lunch breaks.) But since humans need to classify the sites for the directory search engines, there are far fewer sites listed in those directories. Overkill or undershooting . . . pick your poison.
If you just can't make up your mind, there are some sites that let you type in one search which goes out to more than one search engine at the same time.
Whether you prefer one search engine over another, you should get used to playing with all of them, because each search engine has different strengths and weaknesses. (For example, I use Time Warner's Pathfinder for all media searches. If I want to see which magazines have done an article on something, I look there first. However, I use AltaVista first on all broader topics and to find more specific information. If I have no idea where to begin, or am just surfing, I'll use Yahoo! or Lycos.)
Try to find a combination that works for you.
Why, when I'm looking for something online, do I end up at a porn site by accident?
Remember when I told you about how search engines often use keywords to categorize sites? Adult webmasters often use these popular keywords to trick search engines into thinking they are something different than they really are, and to trick us into visiting them. (They earn money on web advertising, among other things, and the number of people who visit their sites determines the amount they can charge advertisers. This works whether the person making the mistake is a child or, an adult, whether they click right out or not.) They misuse the keywords used to code the site, called Metatags.
These words are selected by the web site designer, and are hidden to websurfers. They are encoded into METATEXT, hidden code on each page which can be read only by the web browsers and the search engines. The METATEXT for a legal site may look like this, <keywords="law, lawyer,court, litigation, employment, international, law firms etc.> and whenever a robot for a search engine indexes the site, it will note that when someone is searching for any of those keywords, the site should be listed. Smart marketing requires careful thought in choosing keywords that properly reflect the site's content.
Unscrupulous Web site designers have come up with several schemes to help build traffic to their sites, most of which backfire. In the US the FTC and state attorneys general are taking action against these sites, treating it like false advertising and deceptive practices. Smart adult webmasters are no longer doing this, since it has created much more regulatory scrutiny on their marketing practices and adult content online and has infuriated many parents.
Finding people online"Hello operator...can I have the e-mail address for...?"
There are several directory web sites that contain e-mail addresses and sometimes home addresses and phone numbers. These are called "white pages." They get their information from public telephone directories, voluntary listings (when people register this information directly with the site) and spiders.
If you want to be found, register your e-mail or your business address with them. (Never include home addresses.) On the other hand, if you "vant to be alone . . .," make sure you're not listed.
To make sure you're not listed, you should "Google yourself" - that means search for your full name online at Google.com. Put your name in quotes (o search for Parry Aftab, for example, type "Parry Aftab.") Then do the same for your snail mail address and telephone number, and for your children's names, telephone numbers and addresses. If you find a site that has you or your children listed, ask them to remove it.