Thursday, February 21, 2008
Congratulations!
You have completed Learnthat.com's free Internet Business tutorial. In this tutorial, you learned about Internet software, hardware, protocols, services, search engines, email, marketing your business, and IT jobs.
Internet Business Tutorial, IT Professional Job Opportunities
by Robert H. Fraass on Friday, March 11, 2005
IT Professional Job Opportunities
The advance of computer technology has spawned a new class of worker: the Information Technology (IT) professional.
Trained and certified computing experts in dozens of specialties are required to run all aspects of businesses' internal and external networked communications. As an Internet business owner, you need to determine which IT functions you need and the type of professionals best-suited for these jobs.
Each business is different, so a job role considered crucial at one company may be considered nonexistent at another. Here are basic, generalized job descriptions for some categories of IT professionals to help you determine your hiring and contracting needs.
Analysts-Analysts evaluate different aspects of an IT operation, depending upon their role. Programmer analysts test and evaluate software applications so they achieve business requirements. Business systems analysts develop and implement business, financial and operations systems that align with business requirements. System analysts (or network analysts) test and evaluate internal and external networks.
Business development manager-A business development manager (or marketing manager) is responsible for managing sales, marketing and product development to achieve a business's objectives.
Database administrator-A database administrator (or database architect) develops policies and measures that ensure the integrity and security of the company's databases, which may contain a huge array of information, including data on customers.
Hardware engineer-A hardware engineer (or hardware architect) is responsible for the design, development, testing and implementation of hardware systems.
Help Desk professionals-Help Desk professionals are technicians who help users solve technical problems with software, hardware, networks or other aspects of digital communications.
Information systems technician-An information systems technician (or specialist) is responsible for the continued functioning of all computer systems, including repair, replacement and troubleshooting.
Programmers-Responsibilities of a programmer (or software engineer or application developer) include writing, coding, modifying, testing and analyzing the performance of software programs. When creating new programs, a programmer is involved in all stages of production and is responsible for fixing software errors as needed once a program is operational.
Security administrator-A security administrator (or security engineer or security architect) is responsible for protecting a business's networks by developing systems designed to detect intrusion through the development of firewalls, secure remote access, encryption, secure virtual personal networks (VPNs) and other security messages. IT security professionals often have a CISSP certification (Certified Information System Security Professional).
Systems administrator-A systems administrator (or systems engineer or operations administrator/engineer) is responsible for internal computer software systems and networks and troubleshooting software and network connectivity issues.
Webmaster-A webmaster is responsible for managing many aspects of a business's website, including oversight and administration of its design and content, ongoing development, security, network administration, and the creation of applications, particularly in the Java language. Some webmasters have a certification called Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW).
Web developer-A Web developer (or Web application developer) designs and implements software for websites and fixes errors as needed. Many web developers specialize in specific computer languages, such as C++, HTML, JavaScript, and CGI.
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)-A Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer is a specialist in the design and implementation of Microsoft Windows operating systems and the Microsoft Windows Server System.
Chief information officer (CIO)-A chief information officer is responsible for the management of a business's entire IT structure and the management of employees
IT Professional Job Opportunities
The advance of computer technology has spawned a new class of worker: the Information Technology (IT) professional.
Trained and certified computing experts in dozens of specialties are required to run all aspects of businesses' internal and external networked communications. As an Internet business owner, you need to determine which IT functions you need and the type of professionals best-suited for these jobs.
Each business is different, so a job role considered crucial at one company may be considered nonexistent at another. Here are basic, generalized job descriptions for some categories of IT professionals to help you determine your hiring and contracting needs.
Analysts-Analysts evaluate different aspects of an IT operation, depending upon their role. Programmer analysts test and evaluate software applications so they achieve business requirements. Business systems analysts develop and implement business, financial and operations systems that align with business requirements. System analysts (or network analysts) test and evaluate internal and external networks.
Business development manager-A business development manager (or marketing manager) is responsible for managing sales, marketing and product development to achieve a business's objectives.
Database administrator-A database administrator (or database architect) develops policies and measures that ensure the integrity and security of the company's databases, which may contain a huge array of information, including data on customers.
Hardware engineer-A hardware engineer (or hardware architect) is responsible for the design, development, testing and implementation of hardware systems.
Help Desk professionals-Help Desk professionals are technicians who help users solve technical problems with software, hardware, networks or other aspects of digital communications.
Information systems technician-An information systems technician (or specialist) is responsible for the continued functioning of all computer systems, including repair, replacement and troubleshooting.
Programmers-Responsibilities of a programmer (or software engineer or application developer) include writing, coding, modifying, testing and analyzing the performance of software programs. When creating new programs, a programmer is involved in all stages of production and is responsible for fixing software errors as needed once a program is operational.
Security administrator-A security administrator (or security engineer or security architect) is responsible for protecting a business's networks by developing systems designed to detect intrusion through the development of firewalls, secure remote access, encryption, secure virtual personal networks (VPNs) and other security messages. IT security professionals often have a CISSP certification (Certified Information System Security Professional).
Systems administrator-A systems administrator (or systems engineer or operations administrator/engineer) is responsible for internal computer software systems and networks and troubleshooting software and network connectivity issues.
Webmaster-A webmaster is responsible for managing many aspects of a business's website, including oversight and administration of its design and content, ongoing development, security, network administration, and the creation of applications, particularly in the Java language. Some webmasters have a certification called Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW).
Web developer-A Web developer (or Web application developer) designs and implements software for websites and fixes errors as needed. Many web developers specialize in specific computer languages, such as C++, HTML, JavaScript, and CGI.
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)-A Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer is a specialist in the design and implementation of Microsoft Windows operating systems and the Microsoft Windows Server System.
Chief information officer (CIO)-A chief information officer is responsible for the management of a business's entire IT structure and the management of employees
Internet Business Tutorial, Internet Marketing
Internet Business Tutorialby Robert H. Fraass on Friday, March 11, 2005
Internet Marketing
E-mail Marketing. E-mail marketing has gotten a bad name, and who can really blame weary consumers from turning a deaf ear to e-mailed marketing pitches when they receive hundreds and even more than a thousand utterly useless spam messages each day.
Still, using e-mail to market products and services and communicate with customers can be effective when used responsibly and ethically.
First of all, it's inexpensive, as you can send simple text messages to many customers for just pennies. Second, it's effective if you can tailor the message to your customers' wants and needs, don't inundate them with marketing pitches, provide a degree of customization and personalization so they feel like valued customers, and provide an opportunity to easily join or leave your mailing lists.
One easy and ethical way to gather the e-mail addresses of interested customers is to let them request more information about your products and services through your website. Creating a simple website form that will direct messages to your e-mail account is matter of some basic HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) skills.
Perhaps you can provide them something useful in exchange for their e-mail address, which can go a long way toward promoting good will with your customers.
Say, for example, you have a website specializing in sales of high-quality yarn. When customers give you their e-mail addresses requesting information, you can have them receive your free e-mailed newsletter, where you offer tips on choosing the right yarn for different types of crocheting, crocheting tips, etc-maybe even an offer code giving them the opportunity to receive $2 off their next purchase if they are a repeat valued customer.
This type of pro-active marketing is a great way to keep valued customers coming back to shop at your website.
Another tried-and-true method is acquiring e-mail lists from reputable list brokers. If you choose a targeted list wisely, you gain access to an excellent database of potential customers who are likely to be interested in your products and services and will not mind if you contact them via e-mail.
For more sophisticated e-mail marketing campaigns, you may want to consider an e-mail marketing service that has set up shop on the Internet. Many offer many products and services, such as e-mail lists, bulk-mailing software, message customization, and ways to track customer response and ROI (return on investment).
If you plan to engage in direct e-mail marketing (sometimes called "permission marketing"), make sure you have a structure in place to allow your customers to "opt-in" (sign up to receive e-mailed marketing message) or "opt-out" (send a message to stop receiving marketing messages). When you don't give customers options, this is the equivalent of spam. And in today's Internet marketplace, gaining a reputation as a "spammer" can go a long way toward ruining your Internet presence and credibility
Internet Marketing
E-mail Marketing. E-mail marketing has gotten a bad name, and who can really blame weary consumers from turning a deaf ear to e-mailed marketing pitches when they receive hundreds and even more than a thousand utterly useless spam messages each day.
Still, using e-mail to market products and services and communicate with customers can be effective when used responsibly and ethically.
First of all, it's inexpensive, as you can send simple text messages to many customers for just pennies. Second, it's effective if you can tailor the message to your customers' wants and needs, don't inundate them with marketing pitches, provide a degree of customization and personalization so they feel like valued customers, and provide an opportunity to easily join or leave your mailing lists.
One easy and ethical way to gather the e-mail addresses of interested customers is to let them request more information about your products and services through your website. Creating a simple website form that will direct messages to your e-mail account is matter of some basic HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) skills.
Perhaps you can provide them something useful in exchange for their e-mail address, which can go a long way toward promoting good will with your customers.
Say, for example, you have a website specializing in sales of high-quality yarn. When customers give you their e-mail addresses requesting information, you can have them receive your free e-mailed newsletter, where you offer tips on choosing the right yarn for different types of crocheting, crocheting tips, etc-maybe even an offer code giving them the opportunity to receive $2 off their next purchase if they are a repeat valued customer.
This type of pro-active marketing is a great way to keep valued customers coming back to shop at your website.
Another tried-and-true method is acquiring e-mail lists from reputable list brokers. If you choose a targeted list wisely, you gain access to an excellent database of potential customers who are likely to be interested in your products and services and will not mind if you contact them via e-mail.
For more sophisticated e-mail marketing campaigns, you may want to consider an e-mail marketing service that has set up shop on the Internet. Many offer many products and services, such as e-mail lists, bulk-mailing software, message customization, and ways to track customer response and ROI (return on investment).
If you plan to engage in direct e-mail marketing (sometimes called "permission marketing"), make sure you have a structure in place to allow your customers to "opt-in" (sign up to receive e-mailed marketing message) or "opt-out" (send a message to stop receiving marketing messages). When you don't give customers options, this is the equivalent of spam. And in today's Internet marketplace, gaining a reputation as a "spammer" can go a long way toward ruining your Internet presence and credibility
Internet Business Tutorial, Internet Advertising
by Robert H. Fraass on Friday, March 11, 2005
Internet Advertising
Banner advertisements. Advertising with "banners" on websites was all the rage in the late 1990s and was considered by many as the best way to reach potential customers online. Some of the enthusiasm about banner advertisements has faded, but pitching products with banner ads has endured.
Banners ads, even elaborate ones with graphics and movement, are basically simple HTML files inserted as a rectangular graphical form into a web page, and many are easy to create inexpensively. If web page visitors are interested, they will click the ad, which acts as a hyperlink to the e-commerce website that the advertiser wants them to visit.
There are typically eight sizes of banner ads offered, usually as horizontal rectangles although vertical ads and squares are also popular. The size of the ad and its complexity (and sometimes its memory size) helps determine its cost, much like an advertisement placed in a newspaper or magazine.
Ads can be as simple as just text, although that's not probably the best option in the multimedia world of today's Web. Usually, text is accompanied by artwork or a graphic of some kind, and creating full-motion ads with video and even audio are increasingly popular. More complex ads will require experienced professional designers skilled at making the banners attractive while conforming to the technical specifications of the website on which the retailer is advertising.
An important consideration when buying banner advertising is being able to measure its effectiveness. One measurement offered by advertisers is "click-through," which is the percentage of Internet users visiting a web page who click on the ad. Even small click-through rates of 1 or 2 percent are considered effective.
Another measure is the number of "impressions" or "page views" an ad makes. This is simply the number of times a web page containing the ad was viewed, regardless of whether the visitor clicked the ad or not. This is roughly analogous to selling a radio ad based upon the number of listeners, without any real idea if they did or didn't pay attention to it.
Retailers will want to gauge the effectiveness of their banner ads by determining their sales achieved from banner advertising compared to the cost. Most banner ad sales firms will be able to provide this information in their sales pitch.
There are many approaches about where to place banner ads. Sometimes, of course, salespeople will come knocking, hoping you will advertise on their websites and detailing their success rates with sales figures, click-through rates and promised impressions.
Alternatively, you can do the knocking and approach websites on which you want to advertise. This approach gives you better control over which websites your banner ads will appear. Often, Internet marketers will represent many different websites, so you may not always know exactly where your ads will appear. This may be off-putting to some who want tight control over their company's advertising and marketing messages.
If ad budgets are tight, an alternative may be to join a "banner network," in which you exchange space for websites' banners and other links with other website operators. Joining some of these networks is free (if you agree to their terms and conditions), but most charge fees. It's important to keep in mind that you can lose some control of your advertising and marketing messages as you may not be aware of all the sites on which you are advertising.
There are many types of banner networks in business, so you need to research them carefully and make sure you are getting the best value for your marketing dollar. Two of the largest and best-known ad banner sites are FastClick (http://www.fastclick.com) and Tribalfusion (http://www.tribalfusion.com). We use both of these networks and we highly recommend them for advertising with us or to sign up for advertising on your content websi
Internet Advertising
Banner advertisements. Advertising with "banners" on websites was all the rage in the late 1990s and was considered by many as the best way to reach potential customers online. Some of the enthusiasm about banner advertisements has faded, but pitching products with banner ads has endured.
Banners ads, even elaborate ones with graphics and movement, are basically simple HTML files inserted as a rectangular graphical form into a web page, and many are easy to create inexpensively. If web page visitors are interested, they will click the ad, which acts as a hyperlink to the e-commerce website that the advertiser wants them to visit.
There are typically eight sizes of banner ads offered, usually as horizontal rectangles although vertical ads and squares are also popular. The size of the ad and its complexity (and sometimes its memory size) helps determine its cost, much like an advertisement placed in a newspaper or magazine.
Ads can be as simple as just text, although that's not probably the best option in the multimedia world of today's Web. Usually, text is accompanied by artwork or a graphic of some kind, and creating full-motion ads with video and even audio are increasingly popular. More complex ads will require experienced professional designers skilled at making the banners attractive while conforming to the technical specifications of the website on which the retailer is advertising.
An important consideration when buying banner advertising is being able to measure its effectiveness. One measurement offered by advertisers is "click-through," which is the percentage of Internet users visiting a web page who click on the ad. Even small click-through rates of 1 or 2 percent are considered effective.
Another measure is the number of "impressions" or "page views" an ad makes. This is simply the number of times a web page containing the ad was viewed, regardless of whether the visitor clicked the ad or not. This is roughly analogous to selling a radio ad based upon the number of listeners, without any real idea if they did or didn't pay attention to it.
Retailers will want to gauge the effectiveness of their banner ads by determining their sales achieved from banner advertising compared to the cost. Most banner ad sales firms will be able to provide this information in their sales pitch.
There are many approaches about where to place banner ads. Sometimes, of course, salespeople will come knocking, hoping you will advertise on their websites and detailing their success rates with sales figures, click-through rates and promised impressions.
Alternatively, you can do the knocking and approach websites on which you want to advertise. This approach gives you better control over which websites your banner ads will appear. Often, Internet marketers will represent many different websites, so you may not always know exactly where your ads will appear. This may be off-putting to some who want tight control over their company's advertising and marketing messages.
If ad budgets are tight, an alternative may be to join a "banner network," in which you exchange space for websites' banners and other links with other website operators. Joining some of these networks is free (if you agree to their terms and conditions), but most charge fees. It's important to keep in mind that you can lose some control of your advertising and marketing messages as you may not be aware of all the sites on which you are advertising.
There are many types of banner networks in business, so you need to research them carefully and make sure you are getting the best value for your marketing dollar. Two of the largest and best-known ad banner sites are FastClick (http://www.fastclick.com) and Tribalfusion (http://www.tribalfusion.com). We use both of these networks and we highly recommend them for advertising with us or to sign up for advertising on your content websi
Internet Business Tutorial, Search Engine Optimization
The Internet has made fundamental changes in how companies of all sizes operate their businesses. Worldwide communications over the World Wide Web has mean business processes have been streamlined: digital automation has meant fewer people can do more work quicker; operating costs have been reduced because of these efficiencies; and better, cost-effective customer service can be provided through electronic mail (e-mail), websites, and digitized interactive voice response (IVR) phone systems.
The Internet and the Web are ever-evolving, and Internet marketing practices over the years have needed to change with them. E-mail marketing, for example, was once seen as the best inexpensive and effective promotion tools until the explosion of unsolicited commercial e-mail ("spam") turned off the Internet masses, changing the face of how legitimate marketers communicate without offending.
Today, the most widely used tools for marketing commercial enterprises are search engine optimization (SEO) (sometimes referred to search engine marketing [SEM]), e-mail marketing, banner advertisements, and tried-and-true networking. Here's an introduction to some of the Internet marketing techniques that can be used to build brands and generate sales.
Search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines have long been a part of the World Wide Web, but it took search engine kingpin Google to make it the most-popular and easiest way to find information on the Web.
It's so easy to find products and services with Google and other top search engines that much recent Internet marketing has focused on ways to get e-commerce sites to appear at or near the top of search results. When a simple keyword search on Google, Yahoo! or MSN can return literally millions of web pages, the difference between being the third listing on the page or the 33rd can mean the difference in tens of thousands of dollars in sales.
For example, a Google keyword search for "doors" turns up 31.7 million web pages. On the first page of 10 results, five are for door retailers. Imagine the advantage they have over the competition that might be 50th, 500th, or 5,000th on that list.
Theories vary on how to optimize a website's keywords to produce the highest position in search engines. Whole Internet marketing companies have spend countless resources trying to crack the mathematical algorithms Google uses to ensure their clients have top search engine placement. You can pay these companies to gain great search-engine ranking results, or you can do it yourself. There are even SEO software titles claiming to make SEO easy, and entire books have been dedicating to helping businesses achieve top search-engine rankings.
Much of the focus in SEO schemes involved the frequency and placement of keywords. Say, for example, you have a website promoting your Nevada-based real estate company. Ideally, you will want to place high in search-engine rankings every time someone does search-engine keyword search for "Nevada real estate" or "real estate in Nevada" or "Nevada Realtors", just to mention three possible keyword combinations.
Placing these keyword variations on your website may help search engines find your website. Whether they will or not depends, in part, on the frequency of your keywords and their density, meaning the total percentage of the entire page that's made up of keywords. Keyword density theories vary, but generally companies strive for a density of about 2 to 10 percent of keywords in their marketing and sales cop
The Internet and the Web are ever-evolving, and Internet marketing practices over the years have needed to change with them. E-mail marketing, for example, was once seen as the best inexpensive and effective promotion tools until the explosion of unsolicited commercial e-mail ("spam") turned off the Internet masses, changing the face of how legitimate marketers communicate without offending.
Today, the most widely used tools for marketing commercial enterprises are search engine optimization (SEO) (sometimes referred to search engine marketing [SEM]), e-mail marketing, banner advertisements, and tried-and-true networking. Here's an introduction to some of the Internet marketing techniques that can be used to build brands and generate sales.
Search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines have long been a part of the World Wide Web, but it took search engine kingpin Google to make it the most-popular and easiest way to find information on the Web.
It's so easy to find products and services with Google and other top search engines that much recent Internet marketing has focused on ways to get e-commerce sites to appear at or near the top of search results. When a simple keyword search on Google, Yahoo! or MSN can return literally millions of web pages, the difference between being the third listing on the page or the 33rd can mean the difference in tens of thousands of dollars in sales.
For example, a Google keyword search for "doors" turns up 31.7 million web pages. On the first page of 10 results, five are for door retailers. Imagine the advantage they have over the competition that might be 50th, 500th, or 5,000th on that list.
Theories vary on how to optimize a website's keywords to produce the highest position in search engines. Whole Internet marketing companies have spend countless resources trying to crack the mathematical algorithms Google uses to ensure their clients have top search engine placement. You can pay these companies to gain great search-engine ranking results, or you can do it yourself. There are even SEO software titles claiming to make SEO easy, and entire books have been dedicating to helping businesses achieve top search-engine rankings.
Much of the focus in SEO schemes involved the frequency and placement of keywords. Say, for example, you have a website promoting your Nevada-based real estate company. Ideally, you will want to place high in search-engine rankings every time someone does search-engine keyword search for "Nevada real estate" or "real estate in Nevada" or "Nevada Realtors", just to mention three possible keyword combinations.
Placing these keyword variations on your website may help search engines find your website. Whether they will or not depends, in part, on the frequency of your keywords and their density, meaning the total percentage of the entire page that's made up of keywords. Keyword density theories vary, but generally companies strive for a density of about 2 to 10 percent of keywords in their marketing and sales cop
Internet Business Tutorial,Indexes
by Robert H. Fraass on Friday, March 11, 2005
Indexes. Most search engines, including Google (by far the most popular), are index-based. Internet users like them because they return a large number of accurate results quickly.
Before a search engine can find web pages and files, it must first search the Web to locate and index all the data that's out there. A search engine accomplishes this with sophisticated software robots called "spiders," which scour web servers to search for web pages and links to yet more web pages. Spiders record all the words they find, creating a massive set of keywords that are then written to the search engine's database.
Directories. With directories, the search engine user compromises a bit of comprehensiveness for better organized and fewer irrelevant search results.
Directories are compiled by people based on websites that are submitted to their directories by website creators. Yahoo!'s directory is a good example of directory-based search engine.
Some search engines, called meta-search engines, are designed to solely to search the results of other search engines. These are powerful tools when you want complete search results, especially when trying to uncover difficult-to-find information. The most-popular meta-search engines include Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com), Mamma (http://www.mamma.com) and Metacrawler (http://www.metacrawler.com).
Search engine tips. Getting the most from your search engine searches is more than just typing a word or two then clicking the Search button. How you combine the keywords in the search will help you get more accurate results. Each search engine website has its own set of features, but here are a few tips that apply to most any search engine you'll use:
· Quotation marks. Putting quotation marks around two or more keywords will return results that exactly match the phrase. For example, typing "That Network" will return only results that contain this exact phrase. Typing "That Network" without the quotation marks will return all web pages containing the word "that" and the word "network". This would result in millions of search results completely unrelated to what the searcher was looking for.
· Boolean operators. In mathematics, Boolean refers to a variable that can only have an answer of true or false. This same principle applies to search engine searches. Boolean operators (typically AND, OR and NOT) let you include or exclude keywords from your search results. For example, typing Vatican AND pope would return results that contain both words. Typing Vatican OR pope would return results that contained either word. Typing Vatican NOT pope would return results that contained "Vatican" but not "pope."
Some search engines, including Google, have eliminated true Boolean searches in favor of "advanced" searches that let you accomplish the same type of searches by filling keywords into different fields (http://www.google.com/advanced_search).
· Math symbols. Similar to Boolean searches, you can use plus (+) and minus (-) signs to include or exclude words from your search. For example, typing winter + coats would return sites that contain both words, while typing winter - coats would return all search results for the word "winter" that did not have the word "coat" on the web page. The plus feature isn't particularly useful (typing winter coats without quotation marks does the same thing), but the negative sign is a helpful tool in narrowing the scope of a search.
· Unique phrases. A clever way to find a narrowly defined set of search results is to type in a unique phrase you think might be on the types of web pages you are looking for. For example, if you are looking for information on starfish off the west coast of Canada, it would be more useful to type the keyword phrase starfish in the Pacific rather than just starfish.
Search engines are fairly easy to use, and the best way to learn their features is to pick one or more you are comfortable with and try different keyword combinations and practice with the website's searching features
Indexes. Most search engines, including Google (by far the most popular), are index-based. Internet users like them because they return a large number of accurate results quickly.
Before a search engine can find web pages and files, it must first search the Web to locate and index all the data that's out there. A search engine accomplishes this with sophisticated software robots called "spiders," which scour web servers to search for web pages and links to yet more web pages. Spiders record all the words they find, creating a massive set of keywords that are then written to the search engine's database.
Directories. With directories, the search engine user compromises a bit of comprehensiveness for better organized and fewer irrelevant search results.
Directories are compiled by people based on websites that are submitted to their directories by website creators. Yahoo!'s directory is a good example of directory-based search engine.
Some search engines, called meta-search engines, are designed to solely to search the results of other search engines. These are powerful tools when you want complete search results, especially when trying to uncover difficult-to-find information. The most-popular meta-search engines include Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com), Mamma (http://www.mamma.com) and Metacrawler (http://www.metacrawler.com).
Search engine tips. Getting the most from your search engine searches is more than just typing a word or two then clicking the Search button. How you combine the keywords in the search will help you get more accurate results. Each search engine website has its own set of features, but here are a few tips that apply to most any search engine you'll use:
· Quotation marks. Putting quotation marks around two or more keywords will return results that exactly match the phrase. For example, typing "That Network" will return only results that contain this exact phrase. Typing "That Network" without the quotation marks will return all web pages containing the word "that" and the word "network". This would result in millions of search results completely unrelated to what the searcher was looking for.
· Boolean operators. In mathematics, Boolean refers to a variable that can only have an answer of true or false. This same principle applies to search engine searches. Boolean operators (typically AND, OR and NOT) let you include or exclude keywords from your search results. For example, typing Vatican AND pope would return results that contain both words. Typing Vatican OR pope would return results that contained either word. Typing Vatican NOT pope would return results that contained "Vatican" but not "pope."
Some search engines, including Google, have eliminated true Boolean searches in favor of "advanced" searches that let you accomplish the same type of searches by filling keywords into different fields (http://www.google.com/advanced_search).
· Math symbols. Similar to Boolean searches, you can use plus (+) and minus (-) signs to include or exclude words from your search. For example, typing winter + coats would return sites that contain both words, while typing winter - coats would return all search results for the word "winter" that did not have the word "coat" on the web page. The plus feature isn't particularly useful (typing winter coats without quotation marks does the same thing), but the negative sign is a helpful tool in narrowing the scope of a search.
· Unique phrases. A clever way to find a narrowly defined set of search results is to type in a unique phrase you think might be on the types of web pages you are looking for. For example, if you are looking for information on starfish off the west coast of Canada, it would be more useful to type the keyword phrase starfish in the Pacific rather than just starfish.
Search engines are fairly easy to use, and the best way to learn their features is to pick one or more you are comfortable with and try different keyword combinations and practice with the website's searching features
Internet Business Tutorial, Search Engines
by Robert H. Fraass on Friday, March 11, 2005
Search Engines
What would the World Wide Web be without the powerful database searching tools provided by search engine websites? It would be basically like an immense library with millions of books on shelves stretching down endless corridors-all without any librarians or even a single card catalog.
The estimated number of web pages stands at more than 8 billion, and that number is growing all the time. But with search engines, you can type in keywords you want information about and be presented with results in just a matter of seconds-a truly amazing fact given the vast collection of information on the Internet.
Finding the best search engine for your purposes often boils down to personal preference. Here are the Web's top six search engines, which together comprise over 90 percent of searches conducted by users, and, not surprisingly, are some of the Internet's best-known brand names.
Google (www.google.com)
Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com)
MSN (www.msn.com)
AOL (www.aol.com)
Ask Jeeves (www.ask.com)
Information.com (www.information.com)
This section will discuss the different types of search engines and provide some ideas on how to get the most from your search engine use
Search Engines
What would the World Wide Web be without the powerful database searching tools provided by search engine websites? It would be basically like an immense library with millions of books on shelves stretching down endless corridors-all without any librarians or even a single card catalog.
The estimated number of web pages stands at more than 8 billion, and that number is growing all the time. But with search engines, you can type in keywords you want information about and be presented with results in just a matter of seconds-a truly amazing fact given the vast collection of information on the Internet.
Finding the best search engine for your purposes often boils down to personal preference. Here are the Web's top six search engines, which together comprise over 90 percent of searches conducted by users, and, not surprisingly, are some of the Internet's best-known brand names.
Google (www.google.com)
Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com)
MSN (www.msn.com)
AOL (www.aol.com)
Ask Jeeves (www.ask.com)
Information.com (www.information.com)
This section will discuss the different types of search engines and provide some ideas on how to get the most from your search engine use
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