paris4.htm: How to search the web, by fravia+ (¯`·.¸(¯`·.¸ Paris, ecole polytechnique ¸.·´¯)¸.·´¯)

fravia @ Paris
Ecole polytechnique, 6 February 2001

The information mass is overwhelming. To avoid drowning in the vast sea, anyone navigating the web needs to know how to use the available tools and techniques.

Searching, combing, klebing, luring, hacking... and stalking :-)

There are many techniques that you can apply in order to search effectively, some of these techniques are easy and straightforward, other require a lot of 'feeling'. With the word I basically mean the capacity to adequate your approaches following the kind of target you're seeking, the 'milieu' of your query and the kind of results you're looking for.

In general, there are no rules: the only thing that counts is to grab your target: You may hop, you may leap, you may be a grasshopper or an ant... the only decisive factor is the success of your query and the time you had to employ: you got the targets you were searching for quickly? You won.

If we look for advices, we could consider the following (beside the usual main doctrines "don't loose your track", "narrow down" and "use proximity operators"):

1) go "local" as well. The idea is to try (some) searches on local and regional search engines, not only on the main ones. If you write your own bots you'll slowly be able to "fine-tune" your queries (you may want to have a look at a [recent essay] by Laurent in this context :-). The point to remember is: never limit yourself to the 'main' search engines alone.

2) Now you can either (1) simply search. Or you may (2) decide to jump many days of searching work and therefore search for somebody that has already searched your stuff (and is willing to share, that means he has published it somewhere), which is called 'combing' (but may require some 'luring' and 'stalking' as well). Or (3) you may try to get at those that have already searched for your stuff and are NOT willing to share (that means they have NOT published their findings on the web, or they are hoarding them for commercial purposes) and this last approach is called -as I said before- klebing (but may require some 'luring' and 'stalking' as well).

3) Let us quickly explain the various techniques: combing is relatively simple: Usenet lurking and searching in order to find out (the more quickly the better) who are the 'authorities' in the field you are interested in. This kind of search can be performed using hh

««««« Back to Paris3.htm ««««« »»»»» Forward to Paris5.htm »»»»»