Week 1: Clear Information Search

When searching for information on the web, users typically use one of the two: search engines or subject directories. Search engines contain much larger databases than subject directories. These search engine databases are compiled by programs called "bots." Some search engines have different kinds of bots programmed into their database. For example, Google has two bots compiling their database: deepbot and freshbot. Deepbot goes much more in depth than freshbot by searching every possible link on the web pages that it searches. Freshbot is programmed to only visit the web sites that update very frequently.

Subject Directories are much more smaller and selective than search engines. While the search engine, Google, has over one trillion pages cataloged the Librarian's Internet Index, a subject directory, has only 20,000 sites cataloged. The database of the subject directory is so much more selective because instead of programs called bots updating and compiling data humans edit the data used in subject directories. There are subject directories for generalized information but the bulk of subject directories are for specialized information. For example, the subject directory Internet Movie Database compiles solely information on actors and movies.