What is a search engine? What kinds of searches can be conducted?

Question

How can a
researcher reduce the number of irrelevant results through the use of operators and
other techniques?

Answer 1

A search engine scans the Web and indexes the contents of pages into a database. Whereas people compile directories, a computer generates most of the results delivered by a search engine. This means that the results are limited by the researcher's ability to phrase a query within the constraints of the search engine's capabilities.
Search engines conduct searches in two ways: by key word and by concept. A key- word search generates Web sources that use the exact terms that the researcher types in. A concept search adds sources that use related words. In general, the best results are obtained in a search for Web pages that contain very specific terms.
In a response to a search query, a Web search engine will likely return many irrelevant results. Sometimes, a researcher can eliminate irrelevant sites only by going to the sites and scrolling through them. The use of certain operators can greatly refine search results and help you to avoid this problem. Quotation marks are one of the most useful operators available in most search engines. Placing quotation marks around words or phrases that must appear together in a specific order will effectively narrow search results. Other useful operators are the so-called logical operators of Boolean logic. As it is used in Internet search engines, Boolean logic is a system in which connecting words, primarily and, or, and not, are used to link key words and make search requests more precise. Many search engines automatically use and between key words if you do not specify the connector to be used. Some search engines also allow proximity operators, such as near or n/5 (within five words). A source is included in the search results only if the key words appear close together in the source.