culture.gov.au

Connecting you with Australian culture online

Guide 3. What can I do on the Internet?

How do you find information on the Internet? Search engines!(screen 5 of 20)

There is a huge number of websites on the Internet - hundreds of thousands of them - and millions of individual Web screens.

How do you find either a particular website or information about a particular subject?

In a library you would use an index or catalogue. 

On the Web you do the same. There are websites which are little more than fancy (or not too fancy) indexes. Some indexes are huge, covering a majority of significant websites. Others may be as simple as a list of websites that have a common theme. Either type can be useful. 

A problem with the Web is that there is no standard set of indexing terms. This means that when you are searching you may need to be imaginative in how you develop search strings. You soon learn how important synonyms are!

Almost all Web searching starts with what are called the search engines.

Which search engine should you use?

Making a decision as to which search engine to use can be a task in itself. Fortunately, you can use as many as it takes until you find what you want. 

• Australian cultural search engine
  If you are looking for Australian cultural information try our Australian cultural search engine(1). This search engine indexes the content of more than 4,000 Australian cultural websites so it's an excellent place to search for Australian cultural information.
   
• General Australian information
  If you are looking for more general Australian information you might start with one of the Australian search engines, such as Web Wombat(2) or Anzwers(3). The Ozsites Network(4) promotes Australian websites and encourages Australians to view local product.
   
• Multiple searches
  There are now search services on the Web which search a number of search engines simultaneously. These include Dogpile(5), Mamma(6) and Metacrawler(7).
   
• International search engines
  Some popular international search engines are Google(8), AltaVista(9), Lycos(10), Go.com(11), Excite(12) and Wired magazine's HotBot(13).
   
• Directories
  A directory of search engines is found at the Search Engine Website Directory(14). Yahoo!(15) has an Internet directory where the websites are organised by category or subject area.
   

In addition, there are huge numbers of websites where passionate individuals have found and catalogued websites they are interested in. These can be very useful, although you are never sure about how comprehensive they are, nor how well they are maintained. 

To determine which type of search engine suits you, use a few of them to find information about a topic you are familiar with.

 

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References

1. Our own Australian cultural search engine http://culture.gov.au/
2. Web Wombat http://www.webwombat.com.au/
3. Anzwers http://www.anzwers.com.au/
4. OzSites Network http://www.ozsites.net.au/
5. Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com/
6. Mamma http://www.mamma.com/
7. Metacrawler http://www.metacrawler.com/
8. Google http://www.google.com/
9. AltaVista http://www.altavista.com/
10. Lycos http://www.lycos.com/
11. Go.com http:/go.com/
12. Excite http://www.excite.com/
13. HotBot http://www.hotbot.com/
14. Search Engine Website Directory http://www.sbt.net/search.html
15. Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com/

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