Internet Search Engines

An internet search engine searches the internet, or select pieces of the internet, based on important words, they keep an index of the words they find and where they find them, and they allow users to look for words or combinations of words found in that index. Earlier search engines only had a few hundred thousand pages and document and only received around one or two thousand inquiries each day compared to the hundreds of millions of pages and tens of millions of queries per day now a days. A meta-search engine submits your query to several other search engines and returns a summary of the results back to you. Using a meta-search engine allows you a broader scope the results you get back are not always better than when you use a single search engine. A Boolean operator is a method of representing a relationship between sets using the operators AND, OR, and NOT. These Boolean operators are important because they connect the words you search according to rules for that index. Internet search engines allow you to search the internet, or select pieces of the internet, based on the important words, keeps an index of words they find and where they found them, they also allow you to look for words/combinations of words. The internet allows students to conduct research, evaluate information (think critically about the information they find), and use that information to make a decision. Students also run into problems like inaccurate information or believing everything they read, inability to distinguish different types of information, knowing how to really find information, and understanding citation and respecting copyright. Some questions students should ask themselves when researching on the internet are can you find the name of the author or creator? Are there any credentials/degree, title, etc.? Is there contact information somewhere on the page? Who is the author? What can you tell from the URL? What is the purpose of the web site? Is the site objective? Is this