Module B Assignment # 7

The subject/sentence that I chose to research was: How do chlorofluorocarbons effect the stratosphere.



1- Google



Google found 190, 000 hits in the time period of 0.27 seconds for this search. It quickly identified the key terms and used them to find the sites best suited for my search. Google indexes it's searches in a library list format. Webpages that have the most of the important terms stated in your search appear closer to the top of your results page list. The webpages that have little or no relevance on the otherhand are placed further down the list, usually several pages from the first. Google rates it pages by putting the pages that contain the precise sentence you wrote down or words that you searched, or the pages that contains the biggest number of words of which you searched. Many pages appear on the list due to what is known as word hits. This meaning that the word(s) you searched are randomly being found on these sites. Another reason that irrelevant sites will appear near the top of you results list is because they are sponsored. This means that the site owner has paid google to have their site appear near the top of your search, even if your search has nothing to do with the site. For some searches, links appear at the top of the page boxed in yellow. These are known as sponsored links and the only thing they do is get in the way of your search. These "sponsored links have little to do with your search and generally involve buying their product.



2- AllTheWeb



A total of 328,000 hits in a short time period appeared for this search. It quickly identified the key terms and used them to find the sites that it beleived were best suited for my search. Many of the sites shown on the page had little to do with the actual concept I was researching. Despite this the AllTheWeb has good features. The search engine allows you to specify your search to certain areas, such as audio, video, and image. This allows for a more accurate results on your search. Its indexing is done the same way as Google does, in the library list format. In comparison AllTheWeb has a site that looks more professional, and newer than that of Google's home page. The pages that appeared near the top of the page had very less relevance to the search than that of the sites pulled up on Google. The advertising on the page goes straight to the page ahead. A site owner dcan pay for their page to be at the "top of the list".



3- Yahoo



Yahoo found 337, 000 hots in a time period of 0.36 secs. While typing in my search into the search box it provided several similar searches that had been recently been searched on the same subject. This I think is a useful feature because if you are doing a research project it would help you to find the best pages. Yahoo also indexes it's searches in a library search format. The site finds the best possible match for your search putting the sites with either the exact statement you searched or the most word hits. It then places these more relevant sites ate the top of the page for easier access. Yahoo filters out alot of the pages that have little importance to the search. The short blurb that comes with the site's link is helpful and tells you exactly what you can expect to find on the page. Unlike Google, Yahoo does its advertising differently. The difference is that instead of the ads being placed at the top of the page, the sponsors are placed in a column that runs the length of the right side of the screen. This allows you to do your search with out them being immediately in the way.

Google, which is one of the most used search engines known, ended up showing the least amount of hits. Despite being helpful, it wasn't as helpful as the yahoo search engine. The yahoo search engine came up with a significantly bigger number of hits than Google and it filtered out the less relevant sites so as to avoid frusteration by going to those such sites. Yahoo overall was more reliable, fast, convienient and had the most amount of hits.

I think that Yahoo was the best choice as it provided quick, reliable service and helped me to find the information that I needed instead of sites with little relevance. The filter feature was definetly very helpful.