Savvy Searching:Strategies for more

effective Web searching

Tech TuesdaySeptember 28, 2010

Lisa J.M. LinfieldTechnology Education Specialist

Cooperative Extension Technology Services

Why be savvy?

“Recently…our systems that process links on the web to find new content hit a milestone: 1 trillion (as in 1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs on the web at once!”

- The Official Google Blog2008

Today we will explore…

Web search tools

Strategies to make Web searches more effective

Clues to look for when evaluating Websites for credibility

Search Engine Sampler

All -purpose

Meta-search

Human-powered

…plus a few hundred more!

Search process

Evaluate results

Identify keywords and

phrases

Modify and refine search

Try more than one search

tool

Strategy

Be as specific as you can with keywords Synonyms? Try to put main keyword first

Learn one or two search engines well Know some advanced searching features

(Look for the HELP tool)▪ Boolean searching (AND, NOT, OR)▪ Exact phrase, exclude/include words, site specific

searching, specific doc types, etc.

ABCs of Savvy Searching

Authority and

Accuracy

Bias or

BalanceCurrency and

Completeness

Authority and Accuracy Clues

Links to biographical statements

Copyright symbol ©

Tilde ~ in URL

Contact info for author or organization

Parody or satire?

Grammatical or spelling errors

Bias or Balance Clues

Type of site (blog, scholarly journal, etc.) URL (.edu, .gov, etc.)

“About This Site”

Requests for money, time, registration

Evidence/documentation

Ads

Currency and Completeness Clues

Relevant hyperlinks Links to outside sources

Page revision or creation dates

Dated materials

“Under construction”

For further learning

Web Search Strategies in Plain Englishhttp://www.commoncraft.com/search

Research Help from Steenbock Library http://steenbock.library.wisc.edu/instruct/research-help.html

Google Search Cheat Sheet http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html

Bing Search Tipshttp://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/ff524480.aspx

Comprehensive List of Search Engines (descriptions)http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/

Choose the best search engine for your information needshttp://www.noodletools.com