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Having trouble finding what you're looking for? Then you're in the right
place! Below, you'll find some basic tips and guidelines to help you develop
better searching habits, and to help familiarize you with Mamma.com's
results.
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The
World Wide Web has a vast amount of information contained within it on
just about any topic you can imagine. The problem with this immense repertoire
of data, then, is how to find the particular information you're interested
in.
The best way to begin is to come up with a search strategy. What kind of information are you looking for? Are you just beginning your research and want to find very general information? Are you looking for more granular information? Do you already have something very specific in mind that you want to find?
Whatever type of information you're looking for will affect where you look for it. See the descriptions of the different search engines in our Search Engine Guide to determine which kind of search engine best suits your needs. Once you've figured this out, you'll have to perform a keyword search.
Unless you're navigating the categories of a directory (such as Yahoo
or LookSmart), you'll be using keyword terms to search the Internet.
When doing so, there are a few basics to remember:
Spelling: One of the easiest mistakes to make when searching for information is to misspell your query. If you get few or bad results, check to make sure you've spelled everything correctly, or try alternate ways of spelling your words (e.g. color vs. colour or center vs. centre).
Synonyms: Sometimes using different words or more common terms that mean the same thing can greatly improve your results. For instance, you may be more successful using the keyword "TV" rather than "television" or "tired" rather than "fatigued".
Be specific: Don't be afraid to tell a search engine exactly what you're looking for. Use precise terms to get the most relevant results. For example, search for "Subaru dealerships in Omaha" rather than "station wagon" if you're looking to buy an Outback. If, however, this doesn't work and you get too few results, you may have to...
Make
your search more general: There are times when your search can be
too specific, and you'll get no results. If this happens, try broadening
your query topic. Searching for the product name and brand, for instance,
may return better results than searching for specific product numbers
or codes.
By default, search engines use some kind of logic to return appropriate
results for your query. In many cases, they'll begin by retrieving results
that contain all of your query terms, then some of them, and finally any
one of them. If, for instance, you enter a query for Anne of Green
Gables it'll begin by searching for pages including all of these terms,
then some of them (perhaps giving you results for Anne Green) and then
any of them. By the end, most results are highly irrelevant, as they match
only one of your terms.
To get around this, most search engines support search operators, or advanced search features, that help you to be more specific in your search, allowing you to tell the search engine EXACTLY what you want to see in your results. Here are a few of the most common ones:
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Search Math: Plus Sign (+) +Anne +of +Green +Gables tells the search engine that each and every one of these terms must be present on a page in order for it to be returned as a result. A word of caution: using the + sign does not mean that your required keywords will appear in the same sense or order as they appear in your query - it just guarantees that each word will be on the page - SOMEWHERE. Minus Sign (-) +apple +orchards -computer
NOTE: For both the + and - signs it is important not to leave a space between the operator and the search term that follows. |
tells
the search engine to exclude any results containing the term "computer".
This is great to exclude results for queries that might have several
meanings.|
Phrases: Quotes (" ") "Anne of Green Gables" means that all results must contain the phrase "Anne of Green Gables" in order to be displayed. This is different than searching for +Anne +of +Green +Gables or Anne AND of AND Green AND Gables
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as
in each of these cases, you may get results that include all of
these words, but not necessarily together - for instance, Anne Gables
may have a site about her favorite color, green.A note on Stop Words
Many search engines have a predetermined list of words they ignore,
regardless of your search operators, due to how common they are. These
are called stop words. Examples include or, of, a, the, in, to, the, etc...
What does Mamma Support?
Mamma.com supports both search math and phrases.
When a user performs a query containing a plus sign (+), minus sign (-)
or quotes (""), or any combination thereof, Mamma will automatically
turn on or off our source engines, depending upon their ability properly
interpret your query.
The main problem when searching is that search engines are not as intelligent
as their users. While the keywords you're searching for have meaning to
you, to the search engine, they're just a string of characters it has
to find a match for.
Relevance is often determined according to how many other sites link to a page, how frequently your search term appears in a document, or where it appears on the page (the more often a term is written, and the higher it is on the page, the more relevant it is considered). This doesn't always translate to a good result - more often than not, you're interested in finding information about a topic you've described with keywords, not looking to see those keywords repeated over and over again.
Search
engines are also limited in that they're incapable of distinguishing between
words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings (e.g. "apple"
the fruit and "Apple" the computer company). They also cannot
return results that are relevant, containing synonyms to the words you've
used, but that you haven't actually typed into the search box (if you
search for "TV listings" it won't recognize that "television
listings" is also relevant to you).
It is therefore important to remember: Use your head when searching, and tell the search engine exactly what you are and are not looking for (the use of search operators will help you do this). While search engines are a fast way of finding information, they're also dumb - you're the one with the brains.
Just as important as finding the right keywords to use to return the best
results, is understanding where those results are coming from. As mentioned
in our Search Engine Guide ("Hybrids"),
it is now common for search engines to form alliances with one another
and to serve each other's content. This can happen in multiple ways. Here
are a few possibilities:
Backup Results:
Oftentimes, when one search engine's database is limited, they get another
search engine to serve as their "backup", providing results
when they've run out or don't have any to display. This is often the case
with directories, as their overall coverage tends to be more limited than
indexing engines. LookSmart, for example, employs Wisenut to serve their
backup results, and MSN uses Inktomi. Backup results are a good way to
provide a more positive user experience, as they'll encounter few or no
results less often.
Sponsored Results:
"Sponsored", "Featured" or "Popular" listings
are often not very well defined. In most cases, they refer to paid results,
whereby the owner of the site pays a CPC (Cost-Per-Click) or CPM (Cost-Per-Thousand-Impressions)
to have their site listed for particular keyword queries. They're usually
placed just above, within or beside the sites regular search results -
it's important to look for them. These listings are, generally speaking,
advertisements, but can still be very relevant to your search. Review
their title/description to see if it fits your needs and then move on
to actual search results.
Sponsored et al listings can originate "in-house" (from the search engine you're using), or can come from elsewhere. For example, Mamma Classifieds originate from Mamma.com, whereas MSN's Sponsored Sites come from Overture, and Lycos' Sponsored Links come from Google's Adwords program.
Disclosure:
Most major search engines are now providing links to information that
explain what all of their search result sections are (either paid content
originating in-house, or from a partner, or algorithmic/editorial content).
Even so, these links can sometimes be difficult to find. Taking the effort
to locate them, and to read up on where results originate will help you
to better evaluate the results themselves (more on this below).
Like many other search engines, Mamma's results pages consist of various
sections, each of which offer our users a different kind of result. Here,
a brief explanation of some of the most pertinent ones:
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1. Mamma Classifieds All Mamma Classifieds results must go through a quality assurance check to ensure the validity and relevance of each result to the keyword associated with it. Mamma only displays a maximum of three such results at a time in order to limit the number of proprietary paid listings per page. If you find a result in Mamma Classifieds you feel is not relevant, please contact us. Or, if you'd like your site to be included in Mamma Classifieds, please visit the Mamma Classifeds Sign Up Page. |
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3. Mamma's Metasearch
Results As a metasearch engine, Mamma.com obtains its results by querying multiple search engines, and then presenting their combined results to our users according to relevance and source. This means that every time you search Mamma, you're actually searching a series of other great engines all at the same time, and getting only their best results. Included among these sources are indexed engines, directories, pay-for-placement and pay-for-inclusion, natural language, specialty engines and more. We believe it is this mix of sources, combined with our proprietary algorithm that ranks results according to the frequency with which they appear among our sources, that provides you with the best possible results. To learn more about where a particular result comes from, please see Mamma's Result Layout, below. The staff at Mamma.com regularly tests our results for quality, looking for better ways to retrieve them and present them to facilitate your searching experience. If you have any comments regarding our metasearch results, please contact us. |
Specialty Results
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The resulting health information is provided by some of the Web's most trusted medical sites (including WebMD, MedlinePlus, MedicineNet and more) and is displayed in a highly intuitive and comprehensive manner. By compiling results on one easy to navigate page and providing excerpts organized according to topic, such as causes, symptoms and treatments, you can easily determine which of the sites has the information you're interested in. To access Mamma.com's Deep Web Health Search directly, please visit: |
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Mamma Careers is a search engine for jobs - with a radically different approach to job search. In one simple search, Mamma Careers gives job seekers free access to millions of employment opportunities from thousands of websites. Mamma Careers includes all the job listings from major job boards, newspapers, associations and company career pages - and we continue to add new sites every day. With the familiar look and feel of general search engines, Mamma Careers makes it easy for you to drill down by keyword and location to jobs that fit your requirements precisely. To access Mamma.com's Career Search directly, please visit: |
Every search engine presents its results in its own way - here's how Mamma
presents hers:
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[ Google, Teoma, MSN, Looksmart ] The most important element to notice in Mamma's results are the sources from which Mamma has retrieved each result. These are listed in square brackets, to the right of the URL. The first source listed is the engine from which the link actually comes -- the remaining sources listed are duplicates, and are included for information only. So, in the above example, the result comes from Google, but was also found in Teoma, MSN and Looksmart's databases.
When a result has a cost-per-click associated with it (for instance, if it comes from a pay-for-placement source), this is indicated by the text "Paid Result", after the URL and source:
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The "Paid Result" listing only refers to the engine from which the result originated, and does not apply to other engines that may have also returned it and that are listed as duplicates. In the above example, then, "Paid Result" is included because the first source listed - the one from which the result actually comes - is a pay-per-click search engine. It does not, however, make reference to the other sources listed, which may be entirely different types of search engines (to learn more about the different kinds of search engines, please visit our Search Engine Guide).
Once you've refined your keywords and have a set of promising looking
results to choose from, your next step is to evaluate them, and to determine
if they fit your needs. Here are a few things to pay attention to:
Who created the site? By determining who created the site, you can:
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Who's the intended audience? Some sites are written with a particular audience in mind. You can often determine who the site is addressing by looking at the language used - sites intended for academics and professionals will use a much more complex vocabulary than those intended for the general public.
When was the site last updated? This is not always important. If you're searching for historical data, then whether or not a site has been updated in the last few months is irrelevant. If, however, you're researching current events or up-to-date drug information, then frequently updated information is essential.
Is the site easy to use? If a site is hard to navigate, it makes extracting information more time-consuming and difficult.
Is the information relevant to your needs? While this seems obvious, it is important to determine if the information contained in the site is relevant to you - does it address the particular aspect of your topic that interests you?
Barlow, Linda. "The Spider's Apprentice: A Helpful Guide to Web Search
Engines."
http://www.monash.com/spidap.html.
September 2001.
Elkordy, Angela. "Web Searching, Sleuthing,
and Sifting."
http://www.thelearningsite.net/cyberlibrarian/searching/ismain.html.
February 2000.
Habib, David P and Baillot, Robert L. "How
to Search the World Wide Web: A Tutorial for Beginners and Non-Experts."
http://middletownpubliclibrary.org/tutor.htm.
August 2001.
Tyner, Ross and Slaney, Walter. "Sink or Swim:
Internet Search Tools & Techniques."
http://www.sci.ouc.bc.ca/libr/connect96/search.htm#strategy.
Spring 2001.