Chapter 3 Summary
Brittany Ritsick
CIS 145-SP 24
Summary Chapter 3
16 February 2024
Search engines changed the future for humanity, making it easy to get answers at your fingertips. I have used all three search engines that this Chapter mentions: Chrome, Bing, and Yahoo, throughout my life. While I have used all these search engines, I did not previously know the terminology that are associated with them. While I have heard of the terms search expression and query, I had not known about web robots/spiders as well as link rot. I also previously thought that when you search in a search engine that it searches the entire web, I now know that this is untrue as it searches its own database.
Another new thing I learned from this Chapter was the procedure of parsing, and I find it to be impressive how the search engine figures out what hits to display. I also find it impressive that search engines update how they interpret queries often. I felt behooved that I had never thought of using a different search engine if I did not find what I was looking for on my usual search engine. This frame of mind came from me thinking all search engines search the entire web. Now that I know that is incorrect, it is clear to me why each search engine has its own results, even if some are similar.
I also was intrigued to learn about Meta tags and page ranking. While I have used inbound links many times in my profession, I had never known they are called inbound links. I did not have previous knowledge of how to maximize the use of your search engine. I had not previously known how to search by filetype, or location operator or language operator properly. Learning about the “AND, OR and NOT” operators was also new to me. Previously I would just search for one query at a time. I find it interesting that the “AND” operator restricts results, the “OR” operator enlarges results and the “NOT” operator excludes results.
I have previously heard about peer review and how to identify reputable websites in high school when completing research papers. It is absurd to me how many uncredible websites are out there, and I highly agree with Chapter 3 that people should confirm details about the author of a webpage, along with second checking the information on a different website, before considering it credible. Even if a website is credible or reputable, it does not mean that the website is not biased. When it comes to Websites like Wikipedia, I have often used it for personal research, as I find the results there to be quite insightful. However, if I am looking for facts, I will always be sure to check another website (or two) for complete accuracy and not always trust Wikipedia as a factual source.
I found search engine optimization to be an interesting topic, and I am excited to learn more about it in Chapter 8. My dad makes fishing lures from home as a side business, and he has created his own website before. I am interested to see the process, and what I may be able to do to make it worth it to him to relaunch the website instead of just using Facebook for sales. This chapter has made me excited to keep learning about Internet.