Hi people,
I'm back after so some time due to mountains of assignments that needed my attention.
OK for practical 4 and 5, we were supposed to evaluate and compare on the effectiveness of each of the search facilities. Here are my views:
All three search facilities are similar to each other as all of them enable users to research for information on the internet. They all have similar results interface and as the results will be ranked and shown in pages according to the search facilities measurement of their relevance.
One of the strengths of Meta search engines is that they cross reference to other search engines to find information. As for search engines, they have many advance search features and that proved useful for users for users to narrow their search results. Subject directory is useful if users are finding information on a topic but they unsure of the exact information they need.
A weakness of Meta search engines is that search results maybe too refined and the area of focus might be too specific which will lead to only a small number of hits leading to only a few useful results. Search engines however, have manages to find many search results and this might be useful if users are unable to locate useful information within the first few resources. Subject directories cover a small section of pages in the web and they are not useful in finding specific information.
In conclusion, Meta search engines best met my search needs as they are able to find useful information within the least amount of links and the information found was the most relevant among the three search facilities.
Ok. So what did I learnt from this exercise? I found out that the strengths and weakenesses of the different search facilities. I find this knowledge useful as I will be able to use the search facility that suits my searching needs.
Ok, that's all for now.
