Before the arrival of the Internet, in order to search for information, one had to go to a library or try finding a person who would provide the information he or she was looking for. However, with the advent of the Internet and the BigData all one needs to do in order to obtain the information he or she is looking for is to perform a search on a search engine.
1. How does the Internet search work?
To put it simply, the Internet is a global computer network consisting of interconnected networks. Search engines facilitate navigation through the immense “spider web” that is the “web”. The best-known search engine is of course Google. But what is a search engine? Google is just a list of all the websites that it has indexed. Google crawlers constantly scan the web in order to find new or updated content and register it in its index. A crawler is a robot that indexes the content that it deems important. When you search for something on Google and then click through on the search results to visit a website, you are visiting a “cache” created by Google and not the actual website. A “cache” is a website photograph that was taken by Google crawler during the indexing process. Therefore, you do not visit the website “in real time”. Instead, you view its “cache” version registered by Google. The best way to get the information that interests you “in real time” is to set up an information watch. The new information watch tools illustrate how information search on the Internet has evolved with the Internet itself.
2. Evolution of the Internet search
When the Internet became available to the wide public in the ‘90s, the web search was performed only on the World Wide Web (www). It was therefore necessary to type the exact “web address”, i.e. the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of a website in web browser in order to navigate to that website. First search engines appeared short after, with Yahoo leading the way. Later on Google became the supreme leader of the web search industry.
Today, web search is performed by inputting “keywords” into the search bar of a search engine. It is also possible to perform advanced search to get more targeted search results. Advanced search results give a better overview of the entire web and not just the websites that Google considers relevant to your search query. Search results that considered relevant by Google are displayed in a “simple” search results view. Oftentimes, relevancy determined by the number of “clicks”, i.e. website popularity. It does not necessarily mean that the most popular search results are the most relevant ones.
In the end, the question remains – how can I get search results that are relevant to my search query?
There are two ways to search the web in an intelligent manner: by using the advanced search option and by implementing an information watch. The two ways are not exclusive and can be used simultaneously. The advanced search option on Google represents a distinct interface.
The interface allows excluding or including search queries in order to get more targeted or more exhaustive search results.
Information monitoring was defined by Jean-Pierre Lardy, a professor at URFIST (Regional Unit for Training in Scientific and Technical Information) in Lyon as “the set of strategies put in place through the use of automated reporting processes in order to get information as fast as possible.” There are several ways to implement information monitoring, but to put it simply, it requires building a computer service that automatically sends information to user. The watch service is strategically important, as it has become an important decision-making tool for businesses.
Internet research has evolved tremendously over the years. It has become a critical decision-making tool for businesses. It makes sense since we live in a society driven by information. Mastering information research has therefore become one of the main preoccupations for businesses operating in modern economic conditions.
