2.4.3.2 Tips for searching the Internet

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Tip #1 - Carefully evaluate any information found via the Internet

Publishing on the Internet is relatively easy, and inexpensive. There is no guarantee of a screening or editing process. Because anyone can publish a web page, the type and quality of material available on the Internet can vary considerably. Therefore it is vital that you take the time to authenticate and evaluate information found via the Internet. See Module 3.3 Evaluate your resources.

Remember the majority of content on the Web contains commercial content.

An investigation by Lawrence & Giles (1999) of over 800 million public Web pages revealed that:

• 83% contained commercial content
• 6% contained scientific or educational content
• 1.2% contained government content
• 2.8% contained health content
• 1.9 % contained societies content
• 1.5% contained pornographic content
• Other content includes personal, community and religious content

Generally, the Internet is a good source of:

• company information
• technical information (such as software documentation and help manuals)
• images and multimedia
• government information
• statistics
• ePrints

Tip #2 - Try limiting your search by domain

If you are looking for particular content, such as government information or Australian information, you might consider limiting by domain.

Domain names usually consist of four domains or domains:

• host name
• organisation
• organisation type
• country.

Organisation Type

The organisation type can be particularly useful for limiting. The main organisation types include:

Country

You could also limit by the country domain. U.S. domain names often do not include the country domain.

Activity

Type 'energy site:.gov.au' into the Google search engine and view the results. Have a look at the domain names.

Lawrence, S. & Giles, L. (1999). Accessibility of information on the web. Nature, 400(6740), 107-109.