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Buttons in most
browsers' Tool Button Bar, upper
left. BACK returns you to the document
previously viewed. FORWARD goes to the next
document, after you go BACK.
If it seems like the BACK button does not work,
check if you are in a new
browser
window; some Web pages are programmed to open a
new window when you click on some links.
Each window has its own short-term search
HISTORY.
If this does not work, right click on the BACK
button to select the page you want (some Web
pages are programmed to disable BACK).
BLOG
or WEB LOG
A blog (short for "web log") is a type of web
page that serves as a publicly accessible
personal journal (or log) for an individual.
Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the
personality of the author. Blog software usually
has an archive of old blog postings. Many blogs
can be searched for terms in the archive. Blogs
have become a vibrant, fast-growing medium for
communication in professional, political, news,
trendy, and other specialized web communities.
Many blogs provide
RSS
feeds, to which one can subscribe and
receive alerts to new postings in selected
blogs.
BOOKMARK/FAVORITES
Way in
browsers
to store in your computer direct links to sites
you wish to return to. Netscape, Mozilla, and
Firefox use the term Bookmarks. The equivalent
in Internet Explorer (IE) is called a
"Favorite." To create a bookmark, click on
BOOKMARKS or FAVORITES, and then ADD. Or
left-click on and drag the little bookmark icon
to the place you want a new bookmark filed. To
visit a bookmarked site, click on BOOKMARKS and
select the site from the list.
You can download a bookmark file to diskette
and install it on another computer. In most
browsers now, you can do this with an Import...
and Export... set of commands which can be found
under FILE or in the Manage Bookmarks window's
FILE.
BOOLEAN LOGIC
Way to combine terms using "operators" such as
"AND," "OR," "AND NOT" and sometimes "NEAR." AND
requires all terms appear in a record. OR
retrieves records with either term. AND NOT
excludes terms. Parentheses may be used to
sequence operations and group words. Always
enclose terms joined by OR with parentheses.
Which
search engines have this?
See -REJECT TERM and FUZZY AND. Want a more
extensive explanation of Boolean
logic, with illustrations?
BROWSE
To follow links in a page, to shop around in a
page, exploring what's there, a bit like window
shopping. The opposite of browsing a page is
searching it. When you search a page, you
find a search box, enter terms, and find all
occurrences of the terms throughout the site.
When you browse, you have to guess which words
on the page pertain to your interests. Searching
is usually more efficient, but sometimes you
find things by browsing that you might not find
because you might not think of the "right" term
to search by.
BROWSERS
Browsers are software programs that enable you
to view WWW documents. They "translate"
HTML-encoded files into the text, images,
sounds, and other features you see. Microsoft
Internet Explorer (called simply IE), Mozilla,
Firefox, Safari, and Opera are examples of
"graphical" browsers that enable you to view
text and images and many other WWW features.
They are software that must be installed on your
computer. For more information about browsers,
consult the
introductory pages of the Teaching Library
tutorial.
CACHE
In browsers, "cache" is used to identify a
space where web pages you have visited are
stored in your computer. A copy of documents you
retrieve is stored in cache. When you use GO,
BACK, or any other means to revisit a document,
the browser first checks to see if it is in
cache and will retrieve it from there because it
is much faster than retrieving it from the
server.
CACHED LINK
In search results from Google, Yahoo! Search,
and some other search engines, there is usually
a Cached link which allows you to view the
version of a page that the search engine has
stored in its database. The live page on the web
might differ from this cached copy, because the
cached copy dates from whenever the search
engine's
spider
last visited the page and detected modified
content. Use the cached link to see when a page
was last crawled and, in Google, where your
terms are and why you got a page when all of
your search terms are not in it.
CASE SENSITIVE
Capital letters (upper case) retrieve only
upper case. Most search tools are not case
sensitive or only respond to initial capitals,
as in proper names. It is always safe to key all
lower case (no capitals), because lower case
will always retrieve upper case.
Which
search engines have this?
CGI
"Common Gateway Interface," the most common way
Web programs interact dynamically with users.
Many search boxes and other applications that
result in a page with content tailored to the
user's search terms rely on CGI to process the
data once it's submitted, to pass it to a
background program in
JAVA,
JAVASCRIPT, or another programming
language, and then to integrate the response
into a display using
HTML.
COOKIE
A message from a
WEB
SERVER computer, sent to and stored
by your
browser
on your computer. When your computer consults
the originating server computer, the cookie is
sent back to the server, allowing it to respond
to you according to the cookie's contents. The
main use for cookies is to provide customized
Web pages according to a profile of your
interests. When you log onto a "customize" type
of invitation on a Web page and fill in your
name and other information, this may result in a
cookie on your computer which that Web page will
access to appear to "know" you and provide what
you want. If you fill out these forms, you may
also receive e-mail and other solicitation
independent of cookies.
CRAWLER or WEBCRAWLER
Same as
Spider.
DOMAIN,
TOP LEVEL DOMAIN (TLD)
Hierarchical scheme for indicating logical and
sometimes geographical venue of a web-page from
the network. In the US, common domains are .edu
(education), .gov (government agency), .net
(network related), .com (commercial), .org
(nonprofit and research organizations). Outside
the US, domains indicate country: ca (Canada),
uk (United Kingdom), au (Australia), jp (Japan),
fr (France), etc. Neither of these lists is
exhaustive. See also
DNS
entry.
DOMAIN NAME, DOMAIN NAME SERVER (DNS)ENTRY
Any of these terms refers to the initial part
of a
URL,
down to the first /, where the domain and name
of the host or
SERVER
computer are listed (most often in reversed
order, name first, then domain). The domain name
gives you who "published" a page, made it public
by putting it on the Web.
A domain name is translated in huge tables
standardized across the Internet into a numeric
IP
address unique the host computer
sought. These tables are maintained on computers
called "Domain Name Servers." Whenever you ask
the browser to find a URL, the browser must
consult the table on the domain name server that
particular computer is networked to consult.
"Domain
Name Server entry" frequently appears a browser
error message when you try to enter a
URL.
If this lookup fails for any reason, the "lacks
DNS entry" error occurs. The most common remedy
is simply to try the URL again, when the domain
name server is less busy, and it will find the
entry (the corresponding numeric IP address).
For more information, see "All About Domain Names."
DOWNLOAD
To copy something from a primary source to a
more peripheral one, as in saving something
found on the Web (currently located on its
server)
to diskette or to a file on your local hard
drive.
More
information.
EXTENSION or FILE EXTENSION
In Windows, DOS and some other operating
systems, one or several letters at the end of a
filename. Filename extensions usually follow a
period (dot) and indicate the type of file. For
example, this.txt denotes a plain text
file, that.htm or that.html
denotes an
HTML
file. Some common image extensions are
picture.jpg or picture.jpeg or
picture.bmp or picture.gif
FAVORITES
In the Internet Explorer
browser,
a means to get back to a URL you like, similar
to
Bookmarks.
FEED READER
A software package that enables you to easily
read the
XML
code in which
RSS
feeds are written.
Bloglines is currently the most
popular feed reader but there are many
competitors.
FIELD SEARCHING
Ability to limit a search by requiring word or
phrase to appear in a specific field of
documents (e.g., title, url, link). See
LIMITING TO FIELD.
FIND
Tool in most browsers to search for word(s)
keyed in document in screen only. Useful to
locate a term in a long document. Can be invoked
by the keyboard command, Ctrl+F.
FRESHNESS
How up-to-date a search engine database is,
based primarily on how often its
spiders
recirculate around the Web and update their
copies of the web pages they hold, and discover
new ones. Also determined by how quickly they
integrate new sites that web authors send to
them. Two weeks is about as good as most search
engines do, but some update certain selected web
sites more frequently, even daily.
FRAMES
A format for web documents that divides the
screen into segments, each with a scroll bar as
if it were as "window" within the window.
Usually, selecting a category of documents in
one frame shows the contents of the category in
another frame. To go BACK in a frame, position
the cursor in the frame and press the right
mouse button, and select "Back in frame" (or
Forward).
You can adjust frame dimensions by positioning
the cursor over the border between frames and
dragging the border up/down or right/left
holding the mouse button down over the border.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol. Ability to transfer
rapidly entire files from one computer to
another, intact for viewing or other purposes.
FUZZY AND
In
ranking
of results, documents with all terms
(Boolean AND) are ranked first, followed by
documents containing any terms (Boolean OR) are
retrieved. The farther down, the fewer the
terms, although at least one should always be
present.
HEAD or HEADER (of HTML document)
The top portion of the HTML source code behind
Web pages, beginning with <HEAD> and ending with
</HEAD>. It contains the
Title,
Description, Keywords fields and others that web
page authors may use to describe the page. The
title appears in the title bar of most browsers,
but the other fields cannot be seen as part of
the body of the page. To view the <HEAD> portion
of web pages in your browser, click VIEW, Page
Source. In Internet Explorer, click VIEW,
Source. Some search engines will retrieve based
on text in these fields.
HISTORY, Search History
Available by using the combined keystrokes CTRL
+ H, a more permanent record of sites you have
visited/retrieved than
GO.
You can set how many days your browser retains
history in Edit | Preferences, or in Tools |
Options.
HOST
Computer that provides web-documents to clients
or users. See also
server.
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language. A standardized
language of computer code, imbedded in "source"
documents behind all Web documents, containing
the textual content, images, links to other
documents (and possibly other applications such
as sound or motion), and formatting instructions
for display on the screen. When you view a Web
page, you are looking at the product of this
code working behind the scenes in conjunction
with your browser. Browsers are programmed to
interpret HTML for display.
HTML often imbeds within it other programming
languages and applications such as SGML, XML,
Javascript, CGI-script and more. It is possible
to deliver or access and execute virtually any
program via the WWW.
You can see HTML by selecting the View pop-down
menu tab, then "Document Source."
HYPERTEXT
On the World Wide Web, the feature, built into
HTML,
that allows a text area, image, or other object
to become a "link"
(as if in a chain) that retrieves another
computer file (another Web page, image, sound
file, or other document) on the
Internet.
The range of possibilities is limited by the
ability of the computer retrieving the outside
file to view, play, or otherwise open the
incoming file. It needs to have software that
can interact with the imported file. Many
software capabilities of this type are built
into browsers or can be added as "plug-ins."
INTERNET
(Upper case I)
The vast collection of interconnected networks
that all use the
TCP/IP
protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of
the late 60’s and early 70’s. An "internet"
(lower case i) is any computers connected to
each other (a network), and are not part of the
Internet unless the use TCP/IP protocols. An
"intranet" is a private network inside a company
or organization that uses the same kinds of
software that you would find on the public
Internet, but that is only for internal use. An
intranet may be on the Internet or may simply be
a network.
IP Address or IP Number
(Internet Protocol number or address). A unique
number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots,
e.g. 165.113.245.2
Every machine that is on the
Internet
has a unique IP address. If a machine
does not have an IP number, it is not really on
the Internet. Most machines also have one or
more
Domain
Names that are easier for people to remember.
ISP or Internet Service Provider
A company that sells Internet connections via
modem (examples: aol, Mindspring -
thousands of ISPs to choose from; not easy to evaluate).
Faster, more expensive Internet connectivity is
available via
cable,
DSL,
ISDN, or
web-TV.
Often these companies also provide Web page
hosting
service (free or relatively inexpensive web
pages -- the origin of many
personal
pages).
JAVA
A network-oriented programming language
invented by Sun Microsystems that is
specifically designed for writing programs that
can be safely downloaded to your computer
through the Internet and immediately run without
fear of viruses or other harm to our computer or
files. Using small Java programs (called
"Applets"), Web pages can include functions such
as animations, calculators, and other fancy
tricks. We can expect to see a huge variety of
features added to the Web using Java, since you
can write a Java program to do almost anything a
regular computer program can do, and then
include that Java program in a Web page. For
more information search any of these jargon
terms in the
PC
Webopedia.
JAVASCRIPT
A simple programming language developed by
Netscape to enable greater interactivity in Web
pages. It shares some characteristics with
JAVA
but is independent. It interacts with
HTML,
enabling dynamic content and motion.
KEYWORD(S)
A word searched for in a search command.
Keywords are searched in any order. Use spaces
to separate keywords in simple keyword
searching. To search keywords exactly as keyed
(in the same order), see
PHRASE.
LIMITING TO A FIELD
Requiring that a keyword or phrase appear in a
specific field of documents retrieved. Most
often used to limit to the "Title" field in
order to find documents primarily about one or
more keywords. (Can be used for other fields.
See the
table
summarizing search tools features.)
LINK
The URL imbedded in another document, so that
if you click on the highlighted text or button
referring to the link, you retrieve the outside
URL. If you search the field "link:", you
retrieve on text in these imbedded URLs which
you do not see in the documents.
LINK "ROT"
Term used to describe the frustrating and
frequent problem caused by the constant changing
in URLs. A Web page or search tool offers a link
and when you click on it, you get an error
message (e.g., "not available") or a page saying
the site has moved to a new URL. Search engine
spiders
cannot keep up with the changes. URLs change
frequently because the documents are moved to
new computers, the file structure on the
computer is reorganized, or sites are
discontinued. If there is no referring link to
the new URL, there is little you can do but try
to search for the same or an equivalent site
from scratch.
LISTSERVERS
A discussion group mechanism that permits you
to subscribe and receive and participate in
discussions via e-mail.
Blogs
and
RSS
feeds provide some of the communication
functionality of listservers.
META-SEARCH ENGINE
Search engines that automatically submit your
keyword search to several other search tools,
and retrieve results from all their databases.
Convenient time-savers for relatively simple
keyword searches (one or two keywords or phrases
in " "). See
Meta-Search Engines page for complete
descriptions and examples.
NESTING
A term used in
Boolean
searching to indicate the sequence in which
operations are to be performed. Enclosing words
in parentheses identifies a group or "nest."
Groups can be within other groups. The
operations will be performed from the innermost
nest to the outmost, and then from left to
right.
NEWSGROUP
A discussion group operated through the
Internet. Not to be confused with
LISTSERVERS which operate through
e-mail.
PERSONAL PAGE
A web page created by an individual (as opposed
to someone creating a page for an institution,
business, organization, or other entity). Often
personal pages contain valid and useful
opinions, links to important resources, and
significant facts. One of the greatest benefits
of the Web is the freedom it as given almost
anyone to put his or her ideas "out there." But
frequently personal pages offer highly biased
personal perspectives or ironical/satirical
spoofs, which must be
evaluated carefully. The presence in
the page's URL of a personal name (such as
"jbarker") and a ~ or % or the word "users" or
"people" or "members" very frequently indicate a
site offering personal pages.
PACKET, PACKET JAM
When you retrieve a document via the WWW, the
document is sent in "packets" which fit in
between other messages on the telecommunications
lines, and then are reassembled when they arrive
at your end. This occurs using
TCP/IP
protocol. The packets may be sent via
different paths on the networks which carry the
Internet. If any of these packets gets delayed,
your document cannot be reassembled and
displayed. This is called a "packet jam." You
can often resolve packet jams by pressing STOP
then RELOAD. RELOAD requests a fresh copy of the
document, and it is likely to be sent without
jamming.
PDF or .pdf or pdf file
Abbreviation for Portable Document Format, a
file format developed by Adobe Systems that is
used to capture almost any kind of document with
the formatting in the original. Viewing a PDF
file requires Acrobat Reader, which is built
into most
browsers
and can be
downloaded free from Adobe.
PHRASE
More than one
KEYWORD,
searched exactly as keyed (all terms required to
be in documents, in the order keyed). Enclosing
keywords in quotations " " forms a phrase in
AltaVista, , and some other search tools.
Sometimes a phrase is called a "character
string."
PLUG-IN
An application built into a browser or added to
a browser to enable it to interact with a
special file type (such as a movie, sound file,
Word document, etc.)
POPULARITY RANKING of
search results
Some search engines
rank
the order in which search results appear
primarily by how many other sites link to each
page (a kind of popularity vote based on the
assumption that other pages would create a link
to the "best" pages).
Google
is the best example of this. See also
Subject-Based Ranking.
+REQUIRE or -REJECT A TERM OR PHRASE
Insert + immediately before a term (no space)
to limit search to documents containing a term.
Insert - immediately before a term (no space) to
exclude documents containing a term. Can be used
immediately (no space) before the " " delimiting
a phrase.
Functions partially like basic
BOOLEAN
LOGIC. If + precedes more than one
term, they are required as with Boolean AND. If
- is used, terms are excluded as with Boolean
AND NOT. If neither + no - is used, the default
if Boolean OR. However, full Boolean logic
allows parentheses to group and sequence logical
operations, and +/- do not.
Which
search engines have this?
RELEVANCY RANKING of search results
The most common method for determining the
order in which search results are displayed.
Each search tool uses its own unique algorithm.
Most use "fuzzy
and" combined with factors such as
how often your terms occur in documents, whether
they occur together as a phrase, and whether
they are in title or how near the top of the
text.
Popularity is another ranking system.
RSS or RSS feeds
Short for "Really Simple Syndication" (a.k.a.
Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary), refers
to a group of
XML
based web-content distribution and republication
(Web syndication) formats primarily used by news
sites and weblogs (blogs). Any website can issue
an RSS feed. By subscribing to an RSS feed, you
are alerted to new additions to the feed since
you last read it. In order to read RSS feeds,
you must use a "feed
reader," which formats the XML code
into an easily readable format (feed readers are
to XML and RSS feeds as
web
browsers are to
HTML
and web pages.
SCRIPT
A script is a type of programming language that
can be used to fetch and display Web pages.
There are many kinds and uses of scripts on the
Web. They can be used to create all or part of a
page, and communicate with searchable databases.
Forms (boxes) and many interactive links, which
respond differently depending on what you enter,
all require some kind of script language. When
you find a question mark (?) in the URL of a
page, some kind of script command was used in
generating and/or delivering that page. Most
search engine
spiders
are instructed not to crawl pages from scripts,
although it is usually technically possible for
them to do so (see
Invisible Web for more information).
SERVER, WEB SERVER
A computer running that software, assigned an
IP
address, and connected to the
Internet
so that it can provide documents via the World
Wide Web. Also called HOST computer. Web servers
are the closest equivalent to what in the print
world is called the "publisher" of a print
document. An important difference is that most
print publishers carefully edit the content and
quality of their publications in an effort to
market them and future publications. This
convention is not required in the Web world,
where anyone can be a publisher; careful
evaluation of Web pages is therefore
mandatory. Also called a "Host."
SERVER-SIDE
Something that operates on the "server"
computer (providing the Web page), as opposed to
the "client" computer (which is you or someone
else viewing the Web page). Usually it is a
program or command or procedure or other
application causes dynamic pages or animation or
other interaction.
SHTML, usually seen as .shtml
A file name extension that identifies web pages
containing
SSI
commands.
SITE or WEB-SITE
This term is often used to mean "web page," but
there is supposed to be a difference. A web page
is a single entity, one
URL,
one file that you might find on the Web. A
"site," properly speaking, is a location or
gathering or center for a bunch of related pages
linked to from that site. For example, the site
for the present tutorial is the top-level page "Internet
Resources." All of the pages
associated with it branch out from there -- the
web
searching tutorial and all its pages,
and more. Together they make up a "site." When
we estimate there are 5 billion web pages on the
Web, we do not mean "sites." There would be far
fewer sites.
SPIDERS
Computer robot programs, referred to sometimes
as "crawlers" or "knowledge-bots" or "knowbots"
that are used by search engines to roam the
World Wide Web via the Internet, visit sites and
databases, and keep the search engine database
of web pages up to date. They obtain new pages,
update known pages, and delete obsolete ones.
Their findings are then integrated into the
"home" database.
Most large search engines operate several
robots all the time. Even so, the Web is so
enormous that it can take six months for spiders
to cover it, resulting in a certain degree of
"out-of-datedness" (link
rot) in all the search engines. For
more information, read
about
search engines.
SPONSOR
(of a Web page or site)
Many Web pages have organizations, businesses,
institutions like universities or nonprofit
foundations, or other interests which "sponsor"
the page. Frequently you can find a link titled
"Sponsors" or an "About us" link explaining who
or what (if anyone) is sponsoring the page.
Sometimes the advertisers on the page (banner
ads, links, buttons to sites that sell or
promote something) are "sponsors." WHY is
this important? Sponsors and the funding
they provide may, or may not, influence what can
be said on the page or site -- can bias what you
find, by excluding some opposing viewpoint or
causing some other imbalanced information. The
site is not bad because of sponsors, but you
they should alert you to the need to
evaluate
a page or site very carefully.
SSI commands
SSI stands for "server-side include," a type of
HTML instruction telling a computer that serves
Web pages to dynamically generate data, usually
by inserting certain variable contents into a
fixed template or boilerplate Web page. Used
especially in database searches.
STEMMING
In keyword searching, word endings are
automatically removed (lines becomes
line); searches are performed on the stem +
common endings (line or lines
retrieves line, lines, line's, lines',
lining, lined). Not very common as a
practice, and not always disclosed. Can usually
be avoided by placing a term in " ".
STOP WORDS
In database searching, "stop words" are small
and frequently occurring words like and, or,
in, of that are often ignored when keyed as
search terms. Sometimes putting them in quotes "
" will allow you to search them. Sometimes +
immediately before them makes them searchable.
See
Table
of Search Engine features.
SUBJECT-BASED POPULARITY RANKING of search results
A variation on
popularity ranking in which the links
in pages on the same subject are used to in
ranking search results. Used by
Teoma.
SUBJECT DIRECTORY
An approach to Web documents by a lexicon of
subject terms hierarchically grouped. May be
browsed or searched by keywords. Subject
directories are smaller than other searchable
databases, because of the human involvement
required to classify documents by subject.
SUB-SEARCHING
Ability to search only within the results of a
previous search. Enables you to refine search
results, in effect making the computer "read"
the search results for you selecting documents
with terms you sub-search on. Can function much
like
RESULTS
RANKING.
Which
search engines have this?
TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol) -- This is the suite of protocols that
defines the
Internet.
Originally designed for the UNIX operating
system, TCP/IP software is now available for
every major kind of computer operating system.
To be truly on the Internet, your computer must
have TCP/IP software. See also
IP
Address.
TELNET
Internet service allowing one computer to log
onto another, connecting as if not remote.
THESAURUS
In some search tools, the terms you choose to
search on can lead you to other terms you may
not have thought of. Different search tools have
different ways of presenting this information,
sometimes with suggested words you may choose
among and sometimes automatically. The terms are
based on the terms in the results of your
search, not on some dictionary-like thesaurus.
TITLE
(of a document)
The official title of a document from the
"meta" field called title. The text of this meta
title field may or may not also occur in the
visible body of the document. It is what appears
in the top bar of the window when you display
the document and it is the title that appears in
search engine results. The "meta" field called
title is not mandatory in HTML coding.
Sometimes you retrieve a document with "No
Title" as its supposed title; this is caused
when the meta-title field is left blank.
In Alta Vista and some other search tools,
title: search also matches on the "meta"
field, which contains document descriptors not
displayed on the Web. See also
LIMITING
TO A FIELD.
TRUNCATION
In a search, the ability to enter the first
part of a keyword, insert a symbol (usually *),
and accept any variant spellings or word
endings, from the occurrence of the symbol
forward. (E.g., femini* retrieves
feminine, feminism, feminism, etc.)
Which
search engines have this?
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address of
any Web document. May be keyed in a browser's
OPEN or LOCATION / GO TO box to retrieve a
document. There is a logic the layout of a URL:
Anatomy of a URL:
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