This lab is about using your web client strategically to FIND documents on servers. Since no ONE search site has the ability to let you search everything on the web, the savvy user must be ready to use several search sites. A search site is powered by software called a search engine . Part of these instructions guide and control 'bots . Bots are little programs that travel the web, moving from server to server, harvesting data, and sending it back to the search engine.
Some bots harvest the title of a webpage.
Some harvest the first fifty words of a webpage. Some 'bots harvest links between pages, and some engines combine these strategies . Strategic searching saves time, improves the quality of search results, and empowers the user. You are NOT searching the Internet itself, nor the search site database. Fortunately , we have some relatively standardized ways of conducting searches.