“When in doubt, Google it.”
That's the mantra most of us, myself included, have followed over the years. And with good reason too. Very rarely does a search in Google yield results that aren't relevant or helpful. But how often have you tried to search for something very specific and have a completely random link show up on your screen?
The problem with big search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing is that most of the results are generated by Web crawlers or ‘spiders'. For instance, GoogleBot, which is Google's Web crawler is responsible for finding pages on the Web and displaying them on your screen when you search for something. It even goes through a screening process to make sure spam is not generated. The only problem with GoogleBot is that it is a robot — well a virtual one at least.
While this doesn't create problems for most regular searches, a more specific search on say ‘Indian Art' may throw up some very erratic results. What one needs for a search like this is a specialised search engine that will catalogue and display results according to artist, painting, subject or period.
The problem with Google is that you get too much information which often makes searching for something overwhelming. There are plenty of ways to optimise search and narrow down your subject using better keywords and the like, but to make things easier you could use a specialised search engine or ‘Web directory'.
A Web directory is a much more focussed and hence a smaller database of information, organised according to subject and category. These directories are also usually moderated by humans and not bots, so you're likely to find more relevant results within the categories themselves. People and companies can also submit their Web sites to these directories for greater visibility.
Most Web directories will be categorised under Arts, Business, Shopping, Reference, News, Sports, etc., and each of these will have further sub-categories within them to aid search. Some of the more popular Web directories are www.dmoz.org and www.vlib.org (World Wide Web Virtual Library). Students, for instance, would benefit from going to the latter, a much more specific directory in itself, to find information because they would get access to a variety of discussion lists, online publications, image collections and research tools according to the subject they are researching — all in one place and something that is not possible on Google.
India-specific directories
Indian users can try India-specific Web directories such as www.indiawebdirectory.info or www.oneindia.in for country specific results.
Web directories are in no way a replacement for a search engine but they might help you find that proverbial needle in the haystack that even Google may not be able to.