Looking for a few good sites
By Martha Spizziri -- Modern Materials Handling, 2/1/1999
Looking for a web site can be a frustrating experience. If you're looking for a particular company's home page, you can often find it by typing "www.[companyname].com." But just as often, you'll try variations of that formula only to get an unrelated page.
This is where Internet search engines become very useful. Search engines let you type a word or phrase (often referred to as a "key word") into a window on a web page and receive a list of related web sites. But contrary to what you might think, all search engines are not created equal. Nor is there any one location that lists every known web site. Plus, each engine's search software program has its own set of rules.
Popular search engines include AltaVista, Lycos, Excite, Infoseek, HotBot, and Northern Light. All can be found by typing in 'www.' the search engine's name in lower case letters with no spaces, followed by '.com'.
There's also Yahoo!, which technically is not a search engine, but a directory based on user submissions. Another difference is that Yahoo! uses human beings instead of software to categorize and prioritize search results. The human intervention is a plus since it makes Yahoo! a bit more organized.
Another tool I've found are "mega" search sites that allow you to search several of the popular engines mentioned above, and more, at the same time. One such site is www.dogpile.com. Two other super-search engines are www.metacrawler.com and www.copernic.com.
Often the best way to find information on a specialized topic like materials handling or automatic data capture is through specialized sites like www.mmh.com and www.adcnews.com. When you find such a site, you get a double benefit: the site's own content plus a list of links to related sites.
Next month: how to get best results from search tools.
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Modern Materials Handling: www.mmh.com
ADC News & Solutions: www.adcnews.com
Manufacturing Marketplace: www.manufacturing.net
Have a comment, question, or opinion for the Internet Update? E-mail ms@cahners.com (or fax 617-558-4327).
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