Metasearch Engine Reviews: MetaCrawler and Inference Find + Boolean Basics: AND and OR Operators - Page 2
© Paula Dragutsky
Although Inference Find can be very valuable in finding the best information about a topic on the Internet, its format is a mixed blessing. One important shortcoming is that certain categories (for example, commercial sites) sometimes get too large to be useful.
Another drawback is that seeing only the title of an item often doesn't give you enough information to decide whether you want to go to that site. In addition, it's difficult to know where to follow-up your search because names of search engines that items were derived from aren't shown.
Searching Inference Find
Inference Find has no search menus, only a search box. Using Boolean operators is generally not effective, but plus and minus signs work well for requiring or excluding terms. By default, all subject terms appear in each result. Inference Find searches WebCrawler, Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, Infoseek, and Excite (omitting HotBot as does MetaCrawler).
WHEN TO USE A METASEARCH ENGINE
For most searches, you can find everything you need by entering well-thought-out subject terms in any of the large general search engines. But for some topics, you'll save time and get better results if you go to a metasearch engine first.
For example, when you're searching for an obscure name or concept, you can often increase your chances of success by starting with a metasearch engine. After you see which search engine covers your subject best, it's a good idea to follow up your search there.
On the other hand, if you suspect that there's a lot of information on your topic, but the search engine you're using is giving you irrelevant results, you might try a metasearch engine to see if you'd do better somewhere else. Because the Internet is so huge, and search engines differ in their methods of indexing documents, results of searches using the same subject words can vary greatly between systems.
When using most metasearch engines, try to keep your searches simple. In general, use only plus and minus signs, and quotation marks. Anything more complicated may cause inaccuracies in your search, resulting in many irrelevant items.
BOOLEAN BASICS - the AND and OR OPERATORS
Why should you learn Boolean searching? Because it will help you find information about subjects that are difficult to narrow down using "simple" search syntax. And it's EASY. You won't need it for every search, but when you do, it can save you hours of time and aggravation.
Boolean operators are supported by Alta Vista (go to Advanced Search), Lycos (go to Advanced Search, choosing any of the words or all the words from the menu), HotBot (use the main search box, choosing the Boolean phrase from the menu), and Excite (use the main search box).
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