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The biggest difference between this sort of modern, electronic pursuit and the proverbial agricultural one is the existence of a variety of search engines which automatically plow through the tangle of Web pages, separating the wheat from the chaff. It's no wonder, then, that Internet directories are consistently among the Web's most popular destinations. Unfortunately, many novice searchers don't realize that simply entering the first search terms that come to mind will often generate an unwieldy array of possibilities until, of course, they see a listing of the first 10 of 467,223 potential destinations.
So here, we explain how you can use search engines, directories and databases more effectively and efficiently. Sometimes it's just a matter of applying an advanced search methodology. In other instances, it may mean using a readily available Options feature or moving to a more specialized site. To help you sort it all out, we've examined the top search engines and compiled a list of those that will help you quickly find the information you're looking for, with addresses.
The oldest, best known and arguably most user-friendly of all search tools, Yahoo! functions as a searchable online index, revealing an array of choices under such specific categories as ozone depletion and renewable energy. Using Yahoo!, however, can often produce overwhelming results. If you're looking for something more specific, try inserting the words OR or AND (all in capitals) to retrieve sites that match at least one (or all) of your keywords. You can also click on the Options link next to Yahoo!'s search button to indicate whether you want search words to be considered substrings or whole words.
With full-text indexing (engine searches complete document) of some 30 million Web pages and 4 million Internet news groups, AltaVista is probably the Net's most comprehensive search engine. Ideal for finding all the sites that contain a particular word, name or phrase, AltaVista doesn't rate or sort any of its Web pages, so if you aren't familiar with some search tricks and techniques, you may get a staggering number of completely irrelevant matches.
Here are some tips to keep your findings manageable:
In some instances, all-purpose search engines may not yield the best results. If you're researching a specific topic, you may want to try a specialized Internet directory, search service or online database. Since the focus of the REC's Bulletin is environmental issues in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), we will show you the REC's latest online tool - The EnviroPhantom.
The EnviroPhantom is a specialized Internet directory which only covers environmental issues in CEE and the Newly Independent States (NIS). Currently with full-text indexing of over 200,000 pages, the EnviroPhantom will probably become your first stop for all your environmental searches regarding the CEE and NIS regions.
Since the Phantom is constantly indexing and adding new documents to its directory, the EnviroPhantom provides users with "personalized agents" which re-execute the user's search on a periodical basis and inform him or her about the results and newly added documents complete with a short description and a URL link (address on the Internet).
