Search Engine Reviews: Yahoo and Northern Light + Boolean Basics: Using The NEAR Operator

If you use Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) to search for specific information, such as how to get your poinsettias to bloom, you're likely to come up with very few results. But if you're looking for major gardening sites on the Internet, you'll probably have more success.

This is because, unlike Infoseek, Alta Vista and others, Yahoo doesn't search Web pages. Instead, Yahoo searches its own directory of Web sites covering an enormous number of subjects.

Web site vs. Web page: A Web site is a company or person's presence on the Internet, and may consist of one or many Web pages. Web pages contain articles, chat rooms, bulletin boards, videos - whatever.

If your search in Yahoo yields zero results, you'll be whisked to Alta Vista's search system, although you'll still be entering terms in Yahoo's search box. At that point, it makes sense to switch to Alta Vista or another search engine so you can take advantage of its search menus.

Search results: Search results in Yahoo are arranged in a sometimes confusing subject hierarchy. Site descriptions are short and relatively uninformative. Coverage of major sites for individual subjects ranges from comprehensive to sketchy.

So how come Yahoo remains - by far - the most popular spot on the Internet, racking up almost double the visits of any other search engine. I think it's because Yahoo offers people an easy, effective way to get the kind of information they most want and need. And it makes many of the Internet's unique features readily accessible.

A Gateway To The Internet

Want to know what events are taking place on the Internet? Click Today's Web Events for extensive, searchable lists of daily and weekly events about every subject. Search What's New for interesting sites that are new that day or that week, complete with descriptions. Yahoo-Internet Life contains site reviews about many subjects, as well as information about various Internet skills (e.g. how to use chat rooms, how to listen to sounds) and a glossary of Internet terms.

Go to Classified to read online ads for everything (e.g. automobiles, employment, pets, real estate), viewable by metropolitan area, state or nationwide. Your school-age kids can search Yahooligans! for sites (about many subjects) that they will understand and enjoy.

Reuter's News Service is the source of current stories for Yahoo's comprehensive, diverse News page. You can search for individual stock market quotes and look at headlines (with links) of the latest market news at Stock Quotes. A few of its other helpful links include business news by industry, world currency exchange rates, loan rates, and Standard and Poors.

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