DOCSLIB.ORG

Internet 201 Handout

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Internet 201 Handout Kitsap Regional Library Internet 201 Handout To register for computer training at Kitsap Regional Library please call your local branch: Bainbridge: 206-842-4162 Downtown Bremerton: 360-377-3955 Kingston Library: 360-297-3330 Little Boston: 360-297-2670 Manchester: 360-871-3921 Port Orchard: 360-876-2224 Poulsbo: 360-779-2915 Silverdale Library: 360-692-2779 Sylvan Way: 360-405-9100 or Toll-Free 1-877-883-9900 Visit the KRL website www.krl.org for class dates and times. Welcome to Internet 201 at Kitsap Regional Library. This ninety-minute lesson offers a more in-depth look at the Internet and World Wide Web. Students enrolled in this class will: • understand and use the components of the Internet browser • learn different Web searching strategies using Search Engines and Web Directories • practice using KRL’s Electronic Resources (subscription databases) • understand Internet Security issues The Internet can be used for many different purposes: to locate information, communicate, manage finances, purchase goods and services, or simply to be entertained by music, movies and games. The full capacity of what can be achieved using the Internet is of course dependent upon the technology included or added to a computer. Historical Timeline of the Internet 1957 - Creation of ARPA under the Department of Defense. President Eisenhower responds to the Soviets’ successful launch of Sputnik by creating the Advanced Research Projects Agency under the Department of Defense. 1969 - Creation of ARPAnet as the precursor to the Internet. First data package was sent successfully on ARPAnet from UCLA to Stanford Research Institute. 1983 - ARPAnet merged with NSFNet & the “Internet” emerges. The National Science Foundation constructs a university network that linked academic computer science departments. 1990 - Creation of the World Wide Web. British computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, develops the hypertext system that allows documents to be linked easily to one another. 1995 - The NSFNet network is now open to commercial interests. 2006 - Where are we today? 73% of American adults use the Internet. This percentage represents about 147 million people. Pew Internet & Life Project February – April 2006 Survey http://www.pewinternet.org/trends/User_Demo_4.26.06.htm The top activities for which people use the Internet: • e-mail • search engines to find information • driving directions – map websites such as MapQuest or Google Maps • look for info on a hobby or interest • health & medical info • product or service research • check the weather Pew Internet & Life Project http://www.pewinternet.org/trends.asp CLICK! Kitsap Regional Library January 2008 Internet Browser: Beyond the Basics The most popular Internet Browsers today are Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Netscape. Typically a browser is included with the software that accompanies each new computer. Browsers can also be downloaded off the Web for free. An Internet Browser typically contains five bars – four at the top of the screen and the Status Bar at the bottom of the screen. 1. Title Bar: indicates the browser name, web page title, Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons. 2. Address Bar: Indicates the URL (address) of website currently being viewed. Place for a searcher to type in a web address to access a webpage. 3. Menu Bar: Textual menus with sub menus: File, Edit, View, Favorites, Tools, & Help. 4. Tool Bar: Icons or graphical buttons displaying commands: Back, Forward, Stop, Refresh, Favorites, and Print. 5. Status Bar: Displays information about the window currently being viewed. Title Bar Address Bar Menu Bar Tool Bar Status Bar CLICK! Kitsap Regional Library January 2008 Web Navigation & Searching Strategies There are several ways to access information on the World Wide Web once connected to the Internet: • Enter a Web Address into the browser address bar. • Use a Search Engine to locate a web address. • Use a Web Directory to locate a collection of websites on a particular subject. • Use a Subscription database to locate documents not available on the free web. Web Addresses Web addresses are advertised in all types of media. When you see or hear an advertisement for a specific product or company you will often see or hear its web address as well. Make a mental note of its Domain Name Extension – this is the extension that follows the identity of the website, such as the .org in www.krl.org. Common Domain Name Extensions are: .com, .gov, .edu, .net, .mil, .org. Be aware of who is responsible for the web site or web page. Government, Military, and Education domain name extensions are restricted and reserved for websites that belong in those categories. Note that sometimes the Tilde (~) will be represented within a web address. The tilde is a key found on the keyboard (upper left corner) and when used in a website address, usually designates a personal website. The page associated with this web address -- http://www.tc.umn.edu/~pmg/genealogy.html -- was published by a student at the University of Minnesota. While the address ends in an .edu, it is a student who is actually responsible for the information on the web page, not the university. Search Engines A search engine is a tool that allows a person to search for websites by keyword(s) rather than by a web address. Typically a person will use a search engine when they do not know the address of a particular website. The concept is similar to searching for a company in the yellow pages rather than the white pages of a phone book. Search engines are also websites. You must know the web address of a search engine in order to use it. From the home page of a search engine a searcher will enter keywords into a search box and then ask the search engine to “search” for websites that match the keywords entered. Search engines use “crawler-based technology” to match keywords with websites that have been indexed under those keywords by the search engine. The crawler-based technology relies on “computer spiders” to locate matching text using carefully engineered algorithms. Two popular search engines used today are: Google www.google.com Yahoo www.yahoo.com CLICK! Kitsap Regional Library January 2008 To access these search engines from the library’s home page, click on KRL Resources then choose Search the Web OR just type their web address into the address bar of the browser. Below are some tips for using search engines. • Keywords: Choose your keywords carefully. A searcher has the ability to broaden or limit the number of results returned in a search depending upon which keywords are entered. Adding additional terms to a search is the simplest way of getting more accurate results. For example: newspapers washington bremerton will narrow your search results to just newspapers in Bremerton, Washington. • Stop Words: Common words like a, and, an, are, as, at, be, by, for, in, is, it, of, on, the, to, this, and was are not typically recognized by the search engine during a search. These words are referred to as Stop Words and there is no need to include these words in a search phrase when using a search engine. • Quotation Marks: When searching for a specific title, song lyric, or line of poetry, surround the phrase with quotation marks. The quotation marks ensure that the results contain the exact phrase rather than results for each separate word. • Advanced Search: The Advanced Search feature on a search engine also helps a searcher clarify and narrow the search results. In an advanced search, one can search by exact phrase, date range, specific language, document type, or even domain extension. The advanced search features are not typically found on the home page of a search engine; you must click on the link titled Advanced Search to bring up these options. Try the following example using Google’s (www.google.com ) advanced search feature: next to Find Results, enter the search terms Mount Saint Helens. Next to Domain enter the extension .edu. Your results will contain only educational websites (.edu) with Mt. Saint Helens as a keyword. Search Engine Wars: There are many different search engines available on the Web. Each offers a different search technology and the companies who own these technologies are careful not to reveal the secrets behind their algorithms. The search engine Google has risen to the top as one that returns a high percentage of relevant and accurate results. There are other search engines that also provide their own unique twist to searching. Note the following examples: • Ask.com – enter your question in natural language into the search field http://www.ask.com/ • Yahoo.com – a search engine, directory, and portal. Primary competitor to Google and also very popular. http://www.yahoo.com/ • Dogpile.com – searches several search engines at once http://www.dogpile.com/ • Complete Planet www.completeplanet.com: a search engine focused on searching the Hidden Web. “Discover over 70,000+ searchable databases and specialty search engines.” • Cranky.com http://cranky.com: The first age-relevant search engine – for the flip side of Fifty! CLICK! Kitsap Regional Library January 2008 Web Directories Web Directories serve a different purpose from search engines and should not be overlooked; they are excellent resources for information. Web directories are created and organized by “human editors” which means the web pages have gone through an evaluation process before being published in a directory. These web pages are organized by categories with each category having sub-categories. A searcher is able to work his way down to a specific website by clicking through the category lists. Web directories also provide search boxes that allow users to search for specific websites rather than drill down through the many levels of categories. To aid you in your search for information on the web, the librarians at Kitsap Regional Library have put together several web directories.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Cryonics Magazine, Q1 2001
    SOURCE FEATURES PAGE Fred Chamberlain Glass Transitions: A Project Proposal 3 Mike Perry Interview with Dr. Jerry Lemler, M.D. 13 Austin Esfandiary A Tribute to FM-2030 16 Johnny Boston FM & I 18 Billy H. Seidel the ALCOR adventure 39 Natasha Vita-More Considering Aesthetics 45 Columns Book Review: Affective Computing..................................41 You Only Go Around Twice .................................................42 First Thoughts on Last Matters............................................48 TechNews.......................................................................51 Alcor update - 19 The Global Membership Challenge . 19 Letter from Steve Bridge . 26 President’s Report . 22 “Last-Minute” Calls . 27 Transitions and New Developments . 24 Alcor Membership Status . 37 1st Qtr. 2001 • Cryonics 1 Alcor: the need for a rescue team or even for ingly evident that the leadership of The Origin of Our Name cryonics itself. Symbolically then, Alcor CSC would not support or even would be a “test” of vision as regards life tolerate a rescue team concept. Less In September of 1970 Fred and extension. than one year after the 1970 dinner Linda Chamberlain (the founders of As an acronym, Alcor is a close if meeting, the Chamberlains severed all Alcor) were asked to come up with a not perfect fit with Allopathic Cryogenic ties with CSC and incorporated the name for a rescue team for the now- Rescue. The Chamberlains could have “Rocky Mountain Cryonics Society” defunct Cryonics Society of California forced a five-word string, but these three in the State of Washington. The articles (CSC). In view of our logical destiny seemed sufficient. Allopathy (as opposed and bylaws of this organization (the stars), they searched through star to Homeopathy) is a medical perspective specifically provided for “Alcor catalogs and books on astronomy, wherein any treatment that improves the Members,” who were to be the core of hoping to find a star that could serve as prognosis is valid.
    [Show full text]
  • Dining Hall,” “Cafeteria,” and “Campus Food Service” • Be Specific As You Learn More – E.G
    THE INTERNET Conducting Internet Research Computer Applications I Martin Santos Jorge Cab Objectives • After completing this section, students will be able to: • Understand the internet • Identify the different tools for research • Use and cite references from the internet Lecturers: Martin Santos/Jorge Cab (S.P.J.C.) 2 Vocabulary List • Internet (the Net): a global connection of millions of computer networks • Browser: software that helps a user access web sites (Internet Explorer and Netscape) • Server: a computer that runs special software and sends information over the Internet when requested • World Wide Web (the Web or www.): multimedia portion of the Internet consisting of text, graphics, audio and video • URL: stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It is the website's “address” or what the user types in to make the connection • Web site: a “virtual” place on the Internet with a unique URL • Virtual: “mental” replica of something - you can’t “touch” it – need a “tool” to get to it • Web page: a place on a web site where specific information is located • Home page: main page of a web site and first page to load when a site is accessed • Hyperlink: “clickable” text or graphics – takes you from one place to another – usually underlined and shows a hand shaped icon • Hypertext: capability to “link” or “jump” to other references or cross references by clicking • Cyberspace: “electronic” universe where information from one computer connects with another • Upload: process of transferring information to a page/site on the internet • Download: process of transferring information to a computer • Search engine: a site that scans the contents of other web sites to create a large index of information • Domain (top level): code located in the URL representing the type of organization (i.e., .gov (government), .edu (education), .mil (military), .org (organization – non-profit), .com (commercial – a business – for profit) • Internet Service Provider (ISP): a company with direct connection to the Internet that grants subscribers access to various Internet services.
    [Show full text]
  • Dogpile.Com First to Combine Search Results from MSN Search with Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves
    Dogpile.com First to Combine Search Results From MSN Search with Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves With the Addition of MSN Search, Dogpile.com Users Can Efficiently Find More of the Web's Most Relevant Search Results in One Place BELLEVUE, Wash. – August 2, 2005 – Dogpile.com today announced that search results from MSN Search are now available on the Web's leading metasearch engine. By becoming the first to combine results from the four leading search sites—MSN Search, Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves—Dogpile.com gives consumers the most comprehensive view of the Web and helps them efficiently retrieve the most relevant results. The addition of MSN Search to Dogpile.com further extends Dogpile.com's differentiation from any single search engine. Most people believe search results across all four engines are the same, when, in fact, the vast majority of the results from each engine are different. According to a new study, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania State University evaluated 12,570 random queries run on MSN Search, Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. They found only 1.1 percent of the first page results are the same across all four engines. The full results of the study can be found at http://CompareSearchEngines.dogpile.com/whitepaper. "By bringing together the best results from the top engines on Dogpile.com, consumers can be confident they are receiving the most relevant results," said Brian Bowman, vice president of marketing and product management for InfoSpace Search & Directory. Dogpile.com has built a tool that allows consumers to compare the results of the leading engines for themselves.
    [Show full text]
  • Serving the Boaters of America PROLOG P/R/C Greg Scotten, SN
    Volume 2, Issue 2 May 2012 Marketing and Public Relations, The Art and Science of Creating LINKS (Click on selected Link) a Call to Action and Causing a Change. The United States Power Squadrons PR Contest Forms Boating Safety Centennial Anniversary Articles Cabinet Serving the Boaters of America PROLOG P/R/C Greg Scotten, SN The United States Power Squadrons is Inside this issue: celebrating 100 years of community Jacksonville Sail & Power service on 1 February 2014. Your Squadron to conduct a celebratory USPS Centennial 1 squadron needs to be part of that boat parade on the St. John’s important Centennial event which is a River. national milestone. To celebrate this Bright Ideas 2 national milestone, several projects are The Power Squadrons Flag and underway and a national anniversary Etiquette Committee has designed Importance of 3 a unique boat Ensign, which Squadron Editors web page will post exciting activities and information. The Power Squadrons’ emphasizes the event, and is to be MPR Committee 3 Ship Store will be featuring items with flown on members’ vessels in 2013 Mission the 100th Anniversary Logo. An and 2014. A special new Power anniversary postal commemorative is Squadrons logo has been under discussion. All levels of the distributed and is available on line. organization are planning local 2012 Governing 4 A year long ceremonial activity is community activities. Board planned. At the 2013 Annual The precise anniversary day is Sunday, Meeting Governing Board, full sized anniversary Ensigns will be Hands-on Training 6 2 February 2014. But because the Governing Board at the Annual Meeting presented to each of the thirty- two districts.
    [Show full text]
  • Evaluation of Web-Based Search Engines Using User-Effort Measures
    Evaluation of Web-Based Search Engines Using User-Effort Measures Muh-Chyun Tang and Ying Sun 4 Huntington St. School of Information, Communication and Library Studies Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, U.S.A. [email protected] [email protected] Abstract This paper presents a study of the applicability of three user-effort-sensitive evaluation measures —“first 20 full precision,” “search length,” and “rank correlation”—on four Web-based search engines (Google, AltaVista, Excite and Metacrawler). The authors argue that these measures are better alternatives than precision and recall in Web search situations because of their emphasis on the quality of ranking. Eight sets of search topics were collected from four Ph.D. students in four different disciplines (biochemistry, industrial engineering, economics, and urban planning). Each participant was asked to provide two topics along with the corresponding query terms. Their relevance and credibility judgment of the Web pages were then used to compare the performance of the search engines using these three measures. The results show consistency among these three ranking evaluation measures, more so between “first 20 full precision” and search length than between rank correlation and the other two measures. Possible reasons for rank correlation’s disagreement with the other two measures are discussed. Possible future research to improve these measures is also addressed. Introduction The explosive growth of information on the World Wide Web poses a challenge to traditional information retrieval (IR) research. Other than the sheer amount of information, some structural factors make searching for relevant and quality information on the Web a formidable task.
    [Show full text]
  • Communicator's Tools
    Communicator’s Tools (II): Documentation and web resources ENGLISH FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ““LaLa webweb eses unun mundomundo dede aplicacionesaplicaciones textualestextuales…… hayhay unun grangran conjuntoconjunto dede imimáágenesgenes ee incontablesincontables archivosarchivos dede audio,audio, peropero elel textotexto predominapredomina nono ssóólolo enen cantidad,cantidad, sinosino enen utilizaciutilizacióónn……”” MillMilláánn (2001:(2001: 3535--36)36) Internet • Global computer network of interconnected educational, scientific, business and governmental networks for communication and data exchange. • Purpose: find and locate useful and quality information. Internet • Web acquisition. Some problems – Enormous volume of information – Fast pace of change on web information – Chaos of contents – Complexity and diversification of information – Lack of security – Silence & noise – Source for advertising and money – No assessment criteria Search engines and web directories • Differencies between search engines and directories • Search syntax (Google y Altavista) • Search strategies • Evaluation criteria Search engines • Index millions of web pages • How they work: – They work by storing information about many web pages, which they retrieve from the WWW itself. – Generally use robot crawlers to locate searchable pages on web sites (robots are also called crawlers, spiders, gatherers or harvesters) and mine data available in newsgroups, databases, or open directories. – The contents of each page are analyzed to determine how it should be indexed (for example, words are extracted from the titles, headings, or special fields called meta tags). Data about web pages are stored in an index database for use in later queries. – Some search engines, such as Google, store all or part of the source page (referred to as a cache) as well as information about the web pages.
    [Show full text]
  • How to Choose a Search Engine Or Directory
    How to Choose a Search Engine or Directory Fields & File Types If you want to search for... Choose... Audio/Music AllTheWeb | AltaVista | Dogpile | Fazzle | FindSounds.com | Lycos Music Downloads | Lycos Multimedia Search | Singingfish Date last modified AllTheWeb Advanced Search | AltaVista Advanced Web Search | Exalead Advanced Search | Google Advanced Search | HotBot Advanced Search | Teoma Advanced Search | Yahoo Advanced Web Search Domain/Site/URL AllTheWeb Advanced Search | AltaVista Advanced Web Search | AOL Advanced Search | Google Advanced Search | Lycos Advanced Search | MSN Search Search Builder | SearchEdu.com | Teoma Advanced Search | Yahoo Advanced Web Search File Format AllTheWeb Advanced Web Search | AltaVista Advanced Web Search | AOL Advanced Search | Exalead Advanced Search | Yahoo Advanced Web Search Geographic location Exalead Advanced Search | HotBot Advanced Search | Lycos Advanced Search | MSN Search Search Builder | Teoma Advanced Search | Yahoo Advanced Web Search Images AllTheWeb | AltaVista | The Amazing Picture Machine | Ditto | Dogpile | Fazzle | Google Image Search | IceRocket | Ixquick | Mamma | Picsearch Language AllTheWeb Advanced Web Search | AOL Advanced Search | Exalead Advanced Search | Google Language Tools | HotBot Advanced Search | iBoogie Advanced Web Search | Lycos Advanced Search | MSN Search Search Builder | Teoma Advanced Search | Yahoo Advanced Web Search Multimedia & video All TheWeb | AltaVista | Dogpile | Fazzle | IceRocket | Singingfish | Yahoo Video Search Page Title/URL AOL Advanced
    [Show full text]
  • Analysis of Query Keywords of Sports-Related Queries Using Visualization and Clustering
    Analysis of Query Keywords of Sports-Related Queries Using Visualization and Clustering Jin Zhang and Dietmar Wolfram School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201. E-mail: {jzhang, dwolfram}@uwm.edu Peiling Wang School of Information Sciences, College of Communication and Information, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, TN 37996–0341. E-mail: [email protected] The authors investigated 11 sports-related query key- the user’s request includes the client Internet Protocol (IP) words extracted from a public search engine query log address, request date/time, page requested, HTTP code, bytes to better understand sports-related information seeking served, user agent, referrer, and so on. The data are kept in on the Internet. After the query log contents were cleaned and query data were parsed, popular sports-related key- a standard format in a transaction log file (Hallam-Baker & words were identified, along with frequently co-occurring Behlendorf, 2008). query terms associated with the identified keywords. Although a transaction log comprises rich data, including Relationships among each sports-related focus keyword browsing times and traversal paths, it is the queries directly and its related keywords were characterized and grouped submitted by users that have attracted the most research using multidimensional scaling (MDS) in combination with traditional hierarchical clustering methods. The two attention. Query data contain keywords that reflect users’ approaches were synthesized in a visual context by high- wide-ranging information needs. Query logs have been ana- lighting the results of the hierarchical clustering analysis lyzed from a variety of sources with different emphases and in the visual MDS configuration.
    [Show full text]
  • Instrumentalizing the Sources of Attraction. How Russia Undermines Its Own Soft Power
    INSTRUMENTALIZING THE SOURCES OF ATTRACTION. HOW RUSSIA UNDERMINES ITS OWN SOFT POWER By Vasile Rotaru Abstract The 2011-2013 domestic protests and the 2013-2015 Ukraine crisis have brought to the Russian politics forefront an increasing preoccupation for the soft power. The concept started to be used in official discourses and documents and a series of measures have been taken both to avoid the ‘dangers’ of and to streamline Russia’s soft power. This dichotomous approach towards the ‘power of attraction’ have revealed the differences of perception of the soft power by Russian officials and the Western counterparts. The present paper will analyse Russia’s efforts to control and to instrumentalize the sources of soft power, trying to assess the effectiveness of such an approach. Keywords: Russian soft power, Russian foreign policy, public diplomacy, Russian mass media, Russian internet Introduction The use of term soft power is relatively new in the Russian political circles, however, it has become recently increasingly popular among the Russian analysts, policy makers and politicians. The term per se was used for the first time in Russian political discourse in February 2012 by Vladimir Putin. In the presidential election campaign, the then candidate Putin drew attention to the fact that soft power – “a set of tools and methods to achieve foreign policy goals without the use of arms but by exerting information and other levers of influence” is used frequently by “big countries, international blocks or corporations” “to develop and provoke extremist, separatist and nationalistic attitudes, to manipulate the public and to directly interfere in the domestic policy of sovereign countries” (Putin 2012).
    [Show full text]
  • Dean's Line Contents
    With the initiation of “Polytechnic" programs in California, DEAN’S LINE a “Learn by Doing” ethic emerged that was copied in countless high schools and junior colleges throughout the Harold B. Schleifer Dean, University Library state. To meet student needs, Cal Poly elevated the level of instruction at several stages along the way. Originally a high school, the institution was gradually transformed into the CAL POLY POMONA CAMPUS HISTORY BOOK equivalent of a junior college, and then to a four-year You probably knew that the cereal magnate W.K. Kellogg founded college, and ultimately, to a university that included our campus, but did you know that Cal Poly Pomona was the graduate-level instruction. home of Snow White’s horse, Prince Charming?” The Library is proud to make available a beautifully illustrated book California State Polytechnic University, Pomona: A Legacy documenting the history of the Cal Poly Pomona ranch and and a Mission, 1938-1989 is an heirloom-quality coffee- campus. California State Polytechnic University, table book with over 30 historical photographs, indexed, Pomona — A Legacy and a Mission 1938-1989 tells and displayed in a generous 9 x 11 inch, 294-page the story of a distinctive American university whose origins date hardcover format. Copies of the book can be obtained for back, in a limited sense, to the Gold Rush of 1849. The family of $100 through the University Library. the author, the late Donald H. Pflueger, Professor Emeritus, educator, historian, diplomat, and author, has kindly and To commemorate and honor the philanthropy of the generously pledged the proceeds of the book to the University Pflueger family, the Library will use the donations to Library.
    [Show full text]
  • Functional Differences Between Northern Light Singlepoint And
    Functional Differences Between Northern Light SinglePoint and Microsoft SharePoint For Strategic Research Portals Northern Light® Whitepaper April 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Background On Northern Light SinglePoint ................................................................................................................... 2 Third-Party Licensed External Content ...................................................................................................................... 3 Internally Produced Research Content ...................................................................................................................... 4 User Authentication................................................................................................................................................... 4 Differences Between Northern Light SinglePoint and Microsoft SharePoint ................................................................ 5 Investment in a Research-optimized Portal and Supporting Systems ....................................................................... 5 Ability To Technically Integrate With Third-Parties To Index Research Content ....................................................... 6 Content Liability ......................................................................................................................................................... 7 Document Security Conventions Reflecting Licensing Arrangements ....................................................................... 7 Benefit of Having the
    [Show full text]
  • An Empirical Analysis of Internet Search Engine Choice
    An Empirical Analysis of Internet Search Engine Choice Rahul Telang ([email protected]) Tridas Mukhopadhyay ([email protected]) Ronald T. Wilcox ([email protected]) Send correspondence to Rahul Telang H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management Carnegie Mellon University 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 [email protected] December 2001 An Empirical Analysis of Internet Search Engine Choice Abstract We investigate consumers’ choice behavior for Internet search engines. Within this broad agenda, we focus on two interrelated issues. First, we examine whether consumers develop loyalty to a particular search engine. If loyalty does indeed develop, we seek to understand the role of loyalty in the search engine choice. We also explore how the use of non-search features such as email, news, etc. provided by the engines enhances or inhibits customer loyalty. Second, we seek to determine how search engine performance affects the user choice behavior. To accomplish our research objective, we first develop a conceptual model of search engine choice based on the literature of human-computer interaction and cognitive psychology. Our model reflects the fact that information goods such as search engines are a fundamentally different class of products than common household items. We posit that the ability to learn various search engine features and the ease (or difficulty) of transferring this learning to other engines would determine loyalty in this context. Indeed, we expect the user to exhibit differing levels of loyalty to search and non-search features of the engines. We also expect that dissatisfaction with search results would negatively affect search engine choice.
    [Show full text]