Interpreting Web search engine results

Because each Web search engine varies in terms of displaying results, it is difficult to provide general guidance on evaluating and interpreting those results. However, look to see if the following information is available.

• domain - most search engines provide the URL of the retrieved sites. Check the domain of the URL to determine whether the Web page is hosted on an educational site (.edu), a government site (.gov), an association/organization (.org) or a commercial site (.com)

• ranking - some search engines rank results by various criteria such as relevance, comparing the information in the site against the information in the search query.

• date - the results from search engines provide a date which may be useful for evaluating the currency of a Web site. Be aware that the date could refer to when the page was created, mounted, or updated.

• annotation - most search engines provide "annotations" with search results. Theses "annotations", usually the first one or two sentences from the Web page, may provide you with information about the content of the site.

Here is a sample Web search result which illustrates the kinds of information described above:

annotation Hong Kong Tourist Association ONLINE SEARCH You can use this form to search the pages of Hong Kong Tourist Association World Wide Web site. This facility requires a forms-capable browser. Enter the word or words you want to search for. Separate multiple words with spaces. Case.. 99% ranking 1998/04/08 date http://www.hkta.org/search.html domain

Once you have linked to a retrieved site, check to see if any information is provided about the producer/creator of the Web page. Often this information is available through a link to "about this page," "about us," "about this site," or a link to the site's home page. Some examples follow: