INVESTIGATING SEARCH ENGINES AND DIRECTORIES

ACTIVITY SHEETS

6th-8th Grade

WHAT SEARCH SITES DO YOU USE?

What are some features you like about them?

Is there one you do not like to use? Why?

You may think a little differently about search engines after this…

WHAT DOES A SPIDER HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

Search engines use a computer program called a spider to roam the World Wide. Web exploring Web pages and their links. The spider collects information and then a second

computer program indexes all the information. Each search engine’s

spider and index organizes Web pages a bit differently.

WHY DO WE GET DIFFERENT RESULTS USING DIFFERENT SEARCH ENGINES

WITH THE SAME KEYWORDS?

HOW IS A DIRECTORY DIFFERENT FROM A SEARCH ENGINE?

WHEN IS IT BEST TO USE A META-SEARCH ENGINE?

WHY SHOULDN’T YOU STICK WITH ONE SITE TO SEARCH FOR

INFORMATION?

SEARCH ENGINES

Ask.com Google

Live.com Quintura for Kids

Clusty

DIRECTORY SITES

About Open Directory Project

Lycos Yahoo! Directory

META-SEARCH ENGINES

Dogpile MetaCrawler