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Here
is a true and salutary tale concerning this very magazine...
It gives an indication of one of the pitfalls of being an amateur at putting a
presence on the Internet...
Our humble apologies for the delay in bringing
you the articles for this page. We were busy sorting out the aftermath of a
webquake last week, in which a would-be helper (who shall remain nameless to
protect the guilty) accidentally nuked the first issue whilst trying to upload
the second...
No problem, our server has back-up! But then, in
trying to help sort the problem out and at least upload the rest of the second
issue to the correct folder, he accidentally emptied the web template into it
instead, obliterating the copy from the entire new issue and messing up all the
links in one easy blow....
It gets worse... you don't want to hear it, but
he needed a new nickname.
I call him 'quaker - he created a webquake in MarineZine and when he hears me
coming he starts to quake himself!
No, seriously, these things happen and they are just tests of our patience and
perseverance. Have you ever seen anyone with permanently gritted teeth?!
We worked our way around the site, fixing all,
but, now I come to think of it, the article for this page is just about replaced!
What the heck...we were going to have a go at some search engines, were we not?
The piece that was prepared was probably deadly
dull anyway (I prepared it, so I should know) and the best advice I can give you
is to prepare a set of words and try it out on any search engine you see, making
a note of which results seemed best to suit your way of asking for information.
I say this because the alternative is to read the
instructions for each type of search engine before you start and try to conform
with the designer's brain patterns.
More sensible, I think is to take, let's say, 'yacht'
and 'cooker' and 'pressure' (substitute any three words of which one is,
like 'pressure' a word with various meanings) and try combining them with, say,
three sets of instructions.
Type these instructions onto a Notepad file so
that you can just copy and paste them instead of having to type them each time
and then compare the results you get from three different search engines.
If one seems better than the other two, drop
those and add another two. Continue thus until you have either found the
definitive search engine for your style and tastes or have become too irritated,
bored or confused to carry on...
One thing is certain, the way in which different
search engines respond to the same requests is a source of wonderment, until you
remember that they function however their creators wish them to.
Some search engines have sites paying a range of
fees to be listed. He who pays the piper most gets to see his, or her, website
mentioned at every turn, whether relevant or not.
Other search facilities look for certain kinds
of information about the sites on the Web, over and above the correct content
words. A site that is linked to by a great many other sites is obviously popular
and therefore likely to please the questioner, so it may well feature high on
the sort of listing that assesses traffic to the site from other sites.
Every time I think I've got the hang of it, the
rules seem to shift slightly. The search engine I loved to pieces suddenly
alters the rules and churns out loads of sites I don't want to see and vice
versa. It really is a very subjective thing.
People have recommended search engines and
websites to me that have left me absolutely stone cold. There was nothing wrong
with them, they just weren't my kind of site!
Have fun and if you find the time, we'd love to
hear how you get on with using the same words to test different search engines
out. All news from you is always interesting to us. There. I can stop trying to
find the original article now! If you are of the male persuasion, or don't mind
being spotted reading a page for men, regardless of your own gender, you may
like to read the article on the topic of using
search engines on the Man Talk page
(page 169) in this issue.
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