NET 11: Module 4 - Searching the web

Search engine task

What to do:

1. Choose your most commonly used internet search engine and do a search with words of your choosing. Record the first hit and number of hits in your learning log.

Search engine = Google

Words of choice = adobe photoshop under linux

First hit =
Review: Photoshop under Linux
22 Apr 2003 ... Embedded Linux support engineer, and former Adobe test engineer, Cal Erickson gives the ... Adobe Photoshop running under CrossOver Office ...
www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7770280571.html

Number of hits = 262,000

2. Using copernicus or similar, set it up to search at least three search engines (including one that will search the 'deep web') and repeat eactly the same search. Record the number of hits in your learning log, and compare to your first search. What differences did you notice? Why? Which search, on first glance gave you the most promising results?

Program = Copernic

Search engines enabled = 13

Number of hits = 39 (number of hits per search engine was limited to 10. [bumping the hits per search engine up to 300 makes the program shutdown >.>])

Copernic took a lot longer to find fewer results, granted it was searching 13 search engines, but still... If you take into consideration that each search engine will return results in a frction of a second, it could be that it was searching 13 engines in an ineffcient manner. Or, the degredation is an illusion based on the fact that when you visit one search engine it loads fairly instantly, however, when you ask it to search 13 at the same time then place additional relevance checks on top of the pre-existing relevance checks each search engine provides the whole process can seem to take quite some time. Either way... it was sloooowwww.

If you're only looking at the first 5 results then they pretty much gave the same results, only difference being that the results were in a different order.