Activity 4 Search Engines

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using search engines?

Advantages:
1.The use of search engines enables us to precisely describe the information that you are seeking.
2.Search engines help organize the internet and your website.
3.No matter the size or complexity of your business, using search engines will be to your advantage.

Disadvantages:
1.may come up with something unsuitable and may take to much time looking for your chosen website.
2.Using search engines does involve a learning curve. Many beginning Internet users, because of these disadvantages, become discouraged and frustrated.
3.Regardless of the growing sophistication, many well thought-out search phrases produce list after list of irrelevant web pages. The typical search still requires sifting through dirt to find the gems.

Compare and Contrast individual search engines and search meta/search engines.

Meta search engines query several other Web search engine databases in parallel and then combine the results in one list. Because they do not need to create their own databases, there are many meta search engines out there. While Individual Search engines index web sites using electronic means such as spiders, robots or worms which roam the web and compile a database of information.

When is it appropriate to use a search engine? When is it appropriate to use a search/subject directory?

When to use a search engine:

provide organized results for search queries
gain information from websites

When to use a subject directory:

General topics
Popular topics
Specialized Directories
Current events
Product information

What is an invisible web or DEEP WEB?

The Deep Web (also called Deepnet, the invisible Web, DarkNet, Undernet, or the hidden Web) refers to World Wide Web content that is not part of the Surface Web, which is indexed by standard search engines.

How do you find an invisible web?

You can find searchable databases containing invisible web pages in the course of routine searching in most general web directories.

Why are these web pages not available in search engines or subject directories?

The Invisible Web is home to thousands of searchable databases that search engines cannot access. This is because these sites need some type of human interaction; you need to do something on the home page, that search engine spiders are incapable of doing.

References :
http://www.inspree.com/advantages-of-using-search-enginesadvantages-of-using-search-engines/
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_2_disadvantages_to_using_a_search_engine
http://www.gsn.org/web/research/internet/disadse.htm
http://www.articleinput.com/e/a/title/When-to-use-a-subject-directory-and-not-a-search-engine/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Web
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/InvisibleWeb.html
http://blog-well.com/2007/04/24/finding-information-on-the-web-visible-vs-invisible-web/