Search and Utilization of Network Information

Author: Huang Ruhua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-04-01
Features: ANDNOT (!) requires the retrieved documents to contain the search item before "ANDNOT" but not necessarily the item after it, such as university AND NOT college. NEAR ( ) requires the retrieved documents to contain both items flanking "NEAR" simultaneously, with these two words separated by no more than 10 words. However, there is no restriction on their relative positions, such as adult NEAR education.
() Using parentheses and Boolean logical operators together can express complex search queries, such as finding information on "Chinese classical music." You can input (China OR Chinese) AND (classic music). For example, to find materials written in "1999" about "juice," and to have information on apple juice and orange juice ranked first, follow these steps:
① Enter "fruit AND juice" in the dialog box after "Boolean query";
② Enter "apple, orange" in the dialog box after "Sort by";
③ Enter "01/Jan/99" after "From" and "31/Dec/99" after "To";
④ Click "Search" or press Enter. The search results will display web information containing "fruit" and "juice" sorted by "apple, orange." News searches, searches for graphics and audio/video materials, and the search methods mentioned above are largely similar and can be applied similarly.
3. Typical Searches
AltaVista is not limited to text searches and can also use special keywords to search, such as searching for the titles or domain names of web pages. Currently, AltaVista provides the following special keywords:
anchor:text – Find pages containing hyperlinks with the specified word or phrase. For example, anchor:"Click here to visit garden.com" will use "Click here to visit garden.com" as the link.
applet:CLASS – Find pages containing the specified Java applet. For example, applet:Morph will search for pages with the applet named Morph.
domain:domainname – Find pages containing the specified domain name. For example, domain:uk will find sites from the UK, domain:corn will find commercial site pages.
image:filename – Find pages containing graphics with the specified file name. For example, image:beaches will search for pages with the graphic named beaches.
host:name – Find pages on a specific computer. For example, host:lib.tsinghua.edu.cn will find the page named lib on tsinghua.edu.cn.
link:URI – Find pages linking to the specified URI. For example, link:www.whitehouse.gov will find all pages linking to whitehouse.gov.
text:text – Find pages containing the specified text in icons, links, URIs, etc. (Here, the first "text" means searching within text, and the second "text" means the text to be searched). For example, text:graduation will find pages containing graduation in icons, links, URIs, etc.
title:text – Find pages with the specified word or phrase in the title. For example, title:sunset will find pages with sunset in the title.
url:text – Find pages with the specified word or phrase in the URI.
4. Search Results
AltaVista sorts search results based on relevance, with higher relevance results appearing earlier. The results include the document title, a brief summary, URL, update date, and AltaVista translation tools, among others. To expand the search scope, the AltaVista results page also provides a related search feature. For example, when searching with "birthday" (birthday), using the related search will provide a list including: birthdaycards (birthday cards), birthdaycakes (birthday cakes), birthdaygreetings (birthday greetings), birthdaypoems (birthday poems), etc. Additionally, the AltaVista results page includes buttons such as "Image" (image), "Audio)" (audio), "Video)" (video), "Categories" (categories), "The web" (the web), "News" (news), "Products" (products), "Discussions" (discussion groups), etc., which are used to expand the search. For example, if you enter "human cloning" (human cloning) in the search box but find no results on the web page, you can click the various buttons on the AltaVista results page, and AltaVista will immediately restart the search.
### II. Excite
http://www.excite.com
Excite was launched in 1995 and offers various services online, including Excite Search, Excite News, Excite Reference, etc. It has established 9 international sites worldwide, becoming one of the most renowned search engines online. Its search scope is extensive, covering web information, newsgroups, classified advertisements, and personal information. Its prominent feature is the use of conceptual search mode, which automatically searches for synonyms, near-synonyms, and other related terms of the search terms based on word frequency statistics.
1. General Search
When you open Excite's homepage, you will directly enter the general search mode. Enter the desired search item in the search box (searchbox). The search item can be a keyword, a phrase, or a complex search expression composed of Boolean logical operators. Press Enter or click the "Search" button, and Excite will begin the search, listing the results in order of relevance.
(1) Keyword Search
Enter a word in the search box, with no space between words, and the words are implicitly linked by the logical "OR." Additionally, since Excite has intelligent search features, using multiple highly specific keywords for the search can retrieve more relevant documents.
(2) Phrase Search
Phrase search requires that the search results must contain a string identical to the query phrase, with the word order unchanged. When performing phrase search, enclose the phrase in quotation marks to let Excite know that it is a phrase search request, such as "informationsuperhighway" (information superhighway).
(3) Limited Search