Programs I downloaded for topic 4:
The first program I decided to try was bookmark buddy. It’s a great idea to have a program to help manage bookmarks. However I think the program has to be intuitive and easy to use with ‘drag and drop’ an absolute must for any current program. This program ‘bookmark buddy’ frustrated the hell out of me and I found it to not be intuitively designed at all. On the bright side it did encourage me to arrange my bookmarks in an orderly fashion – so I went to the firefox ‘organize bookmark’s’ option and arranged them how I wanted in less than two minutes.
The suggested other programs such as flash and shockwave players, media players, adobe, etc are all programs I already use frequently.
Both the links: ‘Using Web Search Tools’ and ‘Specialised Databases’ are out of date and no longer effective. As an Alternative I visited: www.monash.com/spidap.html which is a guide to using search engines.
How Search engines work:
Metatags are used differently by many different search engines. Some search engines rely heavily on metatags while others like Google don’t use them at all. Having the right keywords in the header for your webpage will assist in achieving a desirable position on search engines that index meta tags. In order to receive as many hits as possible you should use different meta tags on each page of your website.
Search engines use programs called web crawlers to maintain updated lists of sites. These programs methodically search the web looking for new and updated pages. They do this by searching through domains and sites. They usually start by visiting a existing list of URL’s called seeds. They identify any hyperlinks on the website follows these and adds them to them URL list.
There are three characteristics of the World Wide Web that make it difficult to maintain the URL list.
These are:
• The huge size of the internet
• Rapidly changing sites and addresses
• Dynamic page generation
A study by Lawrence and Giles (2000) suggests that no website indexes more than 16% of the internet due to the sheer bulk of the internet (Wikipedia 2008) which suggests that no single search engine will provide all possible relevant results. Another weakness is that crawlers may only search HTML headers and avoid all other header types potentially missing out many relevant sites.
Search Engine Task:
The other program I downloaded was ‘Copernic Agent Basic’ which is software designed to search multiple search engines at once. The words I searched for were ‘Silat Perisai Diri’ which is a martial art. It is quite uncommon and would thus provide a suitable challenge to this ‘super search software’. I got 29 results using Copernic of which around 27 were relevant. When I typed the same phrase into Google however I received pages and pages of responses. Considering that a lot of things Google turns up is irrelevant I went to the next two pages of the Google results and they still seemed to be pretty relevant. This is when I noticed that it is possible to select the amount or results from each search engine. When I increased the maximum amount suddenly I had many more results. On the whole it seems to be a useful program for finding the most relevant links however I feel strangely disconcerted that Google is not one of the search engines searched.
Something interesting I found was the position of the two Youtube videos. Using the Google search they are ranked fourth and fifth most relevant while they don’t show up at all on Copernic. Intrigued I proceeded to view the page source code and discovered that all the pages listed in the top five of both Copernic and Google had all three keywords in the header. The first Youtube video shown on Copernic came in at position twenty. I also noticed that the first ten results from Copernic had at least one of the key words in the URL address. This may have something to do with the ordering of results in Copernic. As all the top ranked results had the keywords in their header it seems that meta tags are vital for both Copernic and Google and having the right keywords in meta tags will result in the highest hits. I would suggest that based on Copernic using multiple search engines it would search a larger amount of the web than Google. It also seems to position the results more logically for academic purposes while Google places Youtube videos high on the list of results. I would probably try both if looking for academic material but have a higher expectation of Copernic. Google on the other hand would be my first choice for general ‘stuff’ that might include videos or other sources.
Boolean Searches:
‘or’ – This searches for one or the other keyword or both keywords together in the same document. The more keywords entered using ‘or’ logic the larger the amount of results that will be found.
‘and’ – This provides results containing only pages with both keywords. The more keywords entered using ‘and’ logic the smaller the number of outputs will be.
‘not’ – This provides only pages containing one of keywords that deliberately avoids showing websites that contain the second keyword.
We return now to my trusty search term: ‘Silat Perisai Diri’. Google was used for this experiment.
I decided this was still too many so I modified my search to exclude Penjak / Pencak Silat from the searches as this is a different style. Therefore I modified my search to:
The conclusion I have reached is that it is not necessarily advantageous to limit the search terms too much. When I used the not Boolean (- sign in google) the results missed many useful pages simply because they mentioned the parent martial art. In my view the most useful result was returned using the following:
Silat “Perisai Diri” OR PD.
This returned the result equivalent to Silat AND (‘Perisai Diri’ OR PD) with the brackets being searched first. This resulted in 56,300 results. I randomly skipped to page six of the results and found that most of the results even on page six were relevant.
Google uses implied Boolean search terms with an easy to fill out template found under ‘advanced search’. It doesn’t however allow you to enter more than three ‘OR’ terms however these can be added by simply including OR between additional keywords.
Organising search information task:
URL: www.silatpd.org
AUTHOR: Perisai Diri Kommisariat Australia
INSTITUTION: Perisai Diri Kommisariat Australia
BLURB/SUMMARY: Perisai Diri or 'the shield of oneself' originated in Indonesia. Pencak Silat is a family of martial arts found in the archipelagos of Indonesia.
Perisai Diri or PD has been in Australia for approximately 25 years. Perisai Diri can be trained effectively without acquiring injury due to its unique training methods. These methods aim to encourage friendship and minimise injury. (www.silatpd.org 2008)
URL: www.perisaidiri.com
AUTHOR: Silat PD United Kingdom
INSTITUTION: Silat Pd United Kingdom
BLURB/SUMMARY: “Silat is the ancient Indonesian art of self-defence ― a tradition with extraordinary subtlety, depth, and power.
Founded by the late grandmaster Bapak RMS Dirdjoatmodjo, Perisai Diri (literally ‘shield of oneself’) is a synthesis of many silat styles that seeks the essence of the art. Each self-defence form, each block or punch, has layers of nuance and meaning.
Our teaching method is specially designed for the use and benefit of men, women and children of all ages and levels of fitness, from all walks of life.
Those who dip their toe into this art will develop health, balance and a sense of well-being, naturally, effectively and without injury.
Those who immerse themselves completely will develop hidden resources of self-protection, physical fitness, inner confidence, and spiritual harmony.” (www.perisaidiri.com 2008)
URL: www.silatpd.usa.com
AUTHOR: Silat PD USA
INSTITUTION: Silat PD USA
BLURB/SUMMARY: This website is the homepage of Silat PD USA. It has a message board for all Silat PD lovers and attracts comments from around the world. The head of Silat PD USA Mas Yana also uses the site to describe several techniques of Silat PD and to market his self Authored books and discussion forums / seminars. One of the key functions of Silat PD is to learn from each other and share knowledge with each other; this website serves as a hub to enable this communication. (www.silatpdusa.com 2008)
I recorded this information using Microsoft word 2007. The information was found using Google and visited using firefox 3.0. I also added the links into my firefox bookmarks in a folder I created called: ‘PD’ for future reference.
Evaluating Web Search Results
As the specified webpage was unavailable I Googled the keywords ‘evaluating websites’ and chose the following site as the most relevant result: www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html
I will use evaluation criteria from this site to evaluate: www.silatpd.org/.
What does the URL tell you?
The url domain(.org) tells me that this site is registered as belonging to an non-profit organization. It also doesn’t appear to be a personal page due to the short concise address with no funny symbols like ~ that would indicate that it may be a personal site.
Is it published by a company that makes sense?
The website is published by the ‘Perisai Diri Kommisariat Australia’. As this is the official organization teaching Silat PD in Australia it seems reasonable that they may make a website promoting their goals.
Look for links on perimeters including such things as: ‘about us’, ‘last modified’ etc
There is an extensive ‘about us’ section on this site describing the history of the martial art, the organization, and the organization in Australia. There are also numerous newsletters offered with the most recent being ‘March 2008’. It would appear that the website is both legitimate and regularly maintained. The page is unfortunately not dated however the information it contains is not likely to rapidly go ‘out of date’ as it’s a traditional style which is virtually unchanged since 1955.
Who wrote the page? What are their credentials?
It was written on behalf of the Perisai Diri Kommisariat Australia and they have the authority and credentials to write about the subject as they head the Australian organization.
Evaluate website using Alexa
The website: www.silatpd.org has a rating of 6,160,574 which is very low. Other ratings provided by alexa are also very limited as the website is outside of the top 100,000 websites and only the top 100,000 websites have detailed information provided. If this was an academic source or large organization this would be of concern; however, considering that there is approximately 100 members in Australia and that it is an obscure and unpopular martial art these ratings are to be expected.
Does it all add up?
Yes. The domain, author, authorizing organization, web links, Alexa rating etc are all precisely as would be expected given the nature of the organization and the website.
Which measures are you likely to use in the future?
I think that most of the things listed are things I have intuitively learnt to search for to verify a websites authority. One of the key things I will use in the future is to examine the web address and just generally ‘notice’ when something expected is missing from the page. When something is missing it usually tends to glare into my eyes. Other aspects are required for academic reasons such as modified date so I will also notice these details.
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