Engine vs. Directory

It is very common when doing research on the Internet to quick jump onto some sort of search device to help find what you're looking for. However, there are different types of search devices that may make your search easier or harder depending on what type of information you're looking for.

Search directories are subject indexes that are created by humans. People actually go out onto the web and choose which sites will appear when people search using that directory. This has both it's advantages and disadvantages. An advantage of this is that search directories tend to be more relevant. Because there are less hits, the hits that do come up are usually very good at matching the subject you searched for. Disadvantages of using search directories is that they are edited. Not every site that includes what you're searching for is going to come up on a search directory. Also, it is likely that you may come across dead links because the people that are editing the search directory cannot check to make sure that every site is in working order. You also have to remember when using a search directory that the hits may be slightly biased because it is edited. An example of a search directory is http://www.dir.yahoo.com .

Search engines are usually much more common than search directories. Search engines are created by spiders and crawlers that go out onto the web and find sites that match, in some way, shape, or form, the keywords that you are looking for. An advantage to using search engines is that you come across many more hits, which might be useful if you're looking for a lot of resources or what you're looking for isn't common. However, disadvantages to this are that the hits that do pop up may be less relevant to your topic. The sites that you find may be useful to you or they may not be. Also, the rankings of the hits on the search engine may be biased. For instance, ranking can be influenced by the payment of a company (for instance, if they pay, their site may come first), the popularity or number of clicks a specific site has, what they software finding the sites believes to be the most relevant, and the location of the key words (if they all come together or are separated). Search engines also allow misspellings, find variations on what you were originally searching for, and find similar words and phrases. All these may be advantages or disadvantages depending on what you're searching for. An extremely common search engine used today is http://www.google.com .

When searching for something on the web, make sure to pick the search tool that is right for the type of research you are doing.