1. What are people searching for today? 

     Today's most popular web search refers to Jared the former Subway spokesman who is pleading guilty to child pornography charges.
  

2. Make a list of five search techniques that you would give to your students ( or other persons if you are not and Education major) to help them conduct effective Internet searches.  Be sure to identify the grade level and if applicable, and the subject area.

     1) If you are not getting the results you are looking for, try changing the phrasing or switch search engines.

     2) Try adding symbols like +,-, or * to refine your search further.

     3) Do not believe everything that you read online. Use goos judgement to find credible sources.

     4) Avoid using "common words" like where or how, search engines like Google ignore them anyway.

     5) Use an online library database for credible articles and journals.

 

3. List 3 search ENGINES that you use or COULD use other than Google.   List in order of importance to you. Give a description of each search tool's distinguishing qualities.  Be sure to give the name and address of each site.

     1) Bing, www.bing.com, I like using Bing becuase it allows me the opportunity to keep up with current events. Every day when I open my browser I am shown today's top news stories so that I don't have to do extensive searches for this information.

     2) Yahoo, www.yahoo.com, Much like Bing, Yahoo provides me with current events. I do not use Yahoo very often because I am not a fan of the interface, it is a bit outdated and has been the same for many years.

     3) Ask, www.ask.com, When I was in grade school Ask.com was my best friend. Before I knew how useful Google could be, I would take all my questions about homework or life to Ask for a quick and easy answer.

 

4.  (5 points) Most people use Google. What is the danger of this? What are some alternative ways to avoid relying on Google for everything? Write a short paragraph (5 to 10 sentences) that responds to these question.

      There is nothing wrong with many people using Google as their go-to search engine, but the problem comes when people use it incorrectly. People tend to just browse and take the first thing they find as the truth, but not everything online is real or true information. Not everything online is real, and because of this you can't trust all sites that you find and you need to find the reputable sites. There are a number of databases that one can go to find peer-reviewed journals and articles that have been proven credible sources. Just like any search engine, there will be problems on any site, but if you search through credible sites you will get better and more accurate results.

5. 

• What search engine to you use? I use Google almost exclusively for my information. Bing is my homepage but if I want to look anything up I go straight to Google.

• What do you do if you don't get the necessary information on the first search? I am a very impatient person and so if I don't find what I'm looking for right away I will stop searching that and look for something else. I will come back to it if it's the last thing I have to do, but before that I'll let it go.

• What are your favorite features of this search engine? I just like that Google provides me with hundreds of pages of information. I can look up anything and find what I'm looking for. It is also helpful because many applications on my phone are powered by Google so I can share data throughout these apps using Google.

   

6. Go to this site and list the number 1, 2, and 3 search engines and their percentages:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-ww-monthly-201312-201506-bar

Did you know the top three sites? Did this information surprise you?

     1) Google (88.42%)

     2) Bing (4.34%)

     3) Yahoo (3.64%)

This is exactly what I expected the date would represent, but I am shocked to see how close Bing and Yahoo are. I expected more of a disparity in the usage of these two search engines.

 

7. Want to compare listings search engines give you for the same search term?  Go to:

Google VS Yahoo Tool
http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.html

Note: Type in various search terms in the box. The connected solid dotes represent the site position (ranking) on each web site. If the dot is blank, is is not found on the OTHER search engine.

Write a short statement (5-10 sentences) explaining what this site does and what you learned from this site about searching!

      I think that this is a very cool site, becuase I've never really thought about comparing the search engine's searches. You can easily find your Google and Yahoo searches and see just how different these search engines are with regards to how they classify their information. Each search engine has its strengths and this website lets you see those strengths faster. I would rather use Google than Yahoo because I feel like Google still gives you more options than Yahoo does. Google also contains many more results than Yahoo which is shown by the dots on the site, this shows why more people use Google.

8. What is a metesearch engins?  Go to http://www.about-searchengines.com/other-search-engines and choose one of the meteaseach engines listed here and try it out.

Write a short statement which defines metasearch engine and your reaction to the metasearch engine site you chose!

      A metasearch engine uses another search engine's information to produce its own results. I chose to use www.dogpile.com, I thought that the interface was kind of childish but and it is completely dog-based, with searches coined as "fetches". I searched the term fireworks, and Dogpile broke this search into sections about advertisements and then web searches. I thought this was useful and let me search for news about this topic as well.

9.  Want to easily try multiple search engines? Go to:

LightSwitch
http://www.thrall.org/lightswitch/general.html

Write a short statement (2 -5 sentences) on your reaction to this site!

     I think it is really cool that there is a website that allows you to search the same thing using multiple search engines. Although it doesn't take much time to open a new tab to search something, this also gives you the option to use search engines that you never would have thought about using.

10. Search for yourself on the web. Also search for yourself in Google images. What were the results? Did you learn anything?

     When I search for myself on Google, I find my facebook page as well as my twitter profile. I also realize how many Aubyn Johnsons there are in the world, with such a unique name I never really think of others that share my name. During an image search I can see some pictures that show up from my facebook and also my twitter, I also saw a picture from the Standard Journal from a couple years ago when I was in the newspaper.

 

11. Visit the Wikipedia List of Search Engines.
Write a short statement (2 -5 sentences) on your reaction to this site!

     I had no idea that there were this many available search engines. I was so used to the common household ones (Bing, Google, and Yahoo) that I did not even think of the possibility of this many search engines. Also I give props to whoever took the time to list them all and categorize each of them by their inteded use.