Things to learn from Scavenger Hunt.
Here's a list of things I wanted you to learn from the Scavenger Hunt. Hope to see insightful additions to this list. Without further ado-
1- Caching
Did you notice that the list of students from last year was only available through clicking on Google's cache? A cache is an older copy of a file. Even if I delete a page from my server, a copy lives on in the cache.
2- Online does not equal Web.
Did you notice that my post was available on Google Groups? This is a vast collection of information that is online and not on the web. See the Wikipedia page on USENET for more background.
3- Information dies.
It was easier to find information about the latest Fortune 500. But, how about the information from one year earlier? Much harder, right?
4- Information hides.
All of you struggled to find the course evals. Just because information is available online, does not mean it is visible.
5-Things are not available in the format you want.
It was interesting to see how all of you formulated searches. Some searched for seven newspapers in South Dakota and were frustrated not to find any links. If you searched for newspapers in South Dakota, you would have seen the answer.
6- Privacy is limited on the Web.
All of you now know where Bill Gates lives!! Even b.g cannot hide on the web.
Any other insights?
1- Caching
Did you notice that the list of students from last year was only available through clicking on Google's cache? A cache is an older copy of a file. Even if I delete a page from my server, a copy lives on in the cache.
2- Online does not equal Web.
Did you notice that my post was available on Google Groups? This is a vast collection of information that is online and not on the web. See the Wikipedia page on USENET for more background.
3- Information dies.
It was easier to find information about the latest Fortune 500. But, how about the information from one year earlier? Much harder, right?
4- Information hides.
All of you struggled to find the course evals. Just because information is available online, does not mean it is visible.
5-Things are not available in the format you want.
It was interesting to see how all of you formulated searches. Some searched for seven newspapers in South Dakota and were frustrated not to find any links. If you searched for newspapers in South Dakota, you would have seen the answer.
6- Privacy is limited on the Web.
All of you now know where Bill Gates lives!! Even b.g cannot hide on the web.
Any other insights?
posted by Sandeep Krishnamurthy at 10:49 AM
3 Comments:
I'd like to tag something onto the concept that information hides, from a web developer's perspective.
There are ways that knowledgeable web developers can manipulate the placement of their pages in search results by adding special 'tags' to their pages.
Theoretically, the 'best' content may not show up as the top results. Additionally, many search engines will give preferential result placement to websites willing to pay for it.
There are other things that can influence how easy it is to find something using a search engine, such as the number of years that the domain name of the site hosting the content is registered for (longer is better). Additionally, a web developer can easily block search engines (all or specific ones) from indexing some or all pages on their website.
All of these factors can contribute to information hiding.
Good points, Carolynn and Dave. We will get into Search Engine Optimization later. Check out the link on the class page if you want to get a head start.
I learned that there is a massive amount of information out there absolutely readily available. All you have to do is know how to access it. One of the most striking things I learned is that there is information online that is not in the WWW. Like searching Groups is different than the WWW. I always thought the WWW is the endall of information.
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