The Internet, through the world-wide-web network, mirrors the thoughts and development of the individuals, businesses, corporations, or organizations with a website presence. Like the people or groups behind them, some websites have staying-power, some are short-lived, and some, like hermits, exist unnoticed.
There is no getting around it, the ones that are noticed and the ones with staying power, like a well-run business, require diligent work: research into existing and emerging competitors, have a constant and never-ending improvement process, commit to a well-thought out plan. These are websites that provide a useful service that no other website provides. Or, the website provides the service better: more speed, more comprehensiveness, wider accessibility.
It is common to think that publishing a web means writing a web page and putting up information. At a professional level, publishing a web requires professional skills that go beyond good writing. Annotation and keywording are an important part of the professional web publisher. Done properly, this process can take as much time as the content of the web page. This stage is important in that webpages/websites require appropriate categorization so that they can be located by Internet information seekers. The skill involves an understanding of Internet search strategies and a respect for emerging standards.
Good search engines (see PI's list of preferred search engines ) use a variety of computer programming techniques to look through the massive amount of information on the Internet and pull out appropriate pages. There are many varied searching techniques. Successful ones use a combination of well-thought-out search strategies.
Over the last decade, a number of "top" search engines have emerged. An Internet information seeker will access data either from word of mouth (someone has given them the specific URL) or they will search for information that "exists" on the Internet. The experienced Internet information seeker will look at the top search engines, follow searching strategies appropriate to each search engine, and compile a list of results. Once the list is compiled, they will remove the "noise". That is, they will remove duplicating entries, categorize the results, and list the results in order of the information that is most likely to give them the sought-for data.
A meta-search engine is ideal for the new Internet user who is unfamiliar with search engines, doesn't know searching strategies, and is unaccustomed to "noise-reduction" procedures. The meta-search engine is also useful to the experienced Internet user who realizes the amount of work involved with getting to the source of useful information.
Meta-search engines such as Mamma, Inference Find, and DogPile perform the search routines followed by experienced Internet information seekers. These meta-search engines examine and take into account the various search strategies of the top search engines and translate a seeker's entry to match the search engines in order to create a compiled list.
Meta-search engines are under constant evolvement. They are being configured to call more search engines, to permit user-customization of the query destinations and the query results. For example, DogPile, permits the user to set and save the order of 23+ search engines, including skipping search engines. Inference Find allowed for customized additions of search engines and a new demo version is now available which is currently configured to search 51 search engines. As new search engines emerge, new meta-search engines are also emerging, and "older" ones are constantly improving.
Click META SEARCHING on PI's Navigation Bar for a list of the top meta-search engines or click the PI Search icon at the bottom of PI pages to visit PI's Current Search Tool (Cool Tool).
More search information is available at:
Professional Informatics provides a list of useful writing resources for computer and media professionals. Visit