By 
As a newspaper reporter, from time to time I was assigned to report on a topic that I did not know well.
I learned that if I didn’t know what questions to ask, I risked being misled.
When these assignments came my way, I was unwilling to be taken advantage of due to my ignorance on the subject. How would I know what to question? He was vulnerable to all kinds of misinformation.
He didn’t know what he didn’t know.
At the risk of dating myself, I remember going to the public library and using the card catalog to do my research.
I never trusted a single book as a reference. I couldn’t trust a book as a source in the same way that I would never use an interview as the sole source for a story. I had to find out what else was available to me.
The same is true for today only in a different context: we have the Internet.
Think of the Web as a virtual library. The analogy I’m using is not just a source, like Google, to research.
Google is huge in its data collection. I love Google. I use it every day and find fabulous information. Google opens up the world in amazing ways. No doubt.
However, Google is like using a book for all your research. There are more “books” at our disposal to find the information we seek than Google.
The difference in these virtual books ranges from marginal to quite significant in what is available on any subject.
Search engines classify information based on mathematical algorithms. Basically, it’s a popularity contest. The websites that get the most visits get the highest rating. Also, companies that pay more money also get a great placement. Below is a short list of search engines:
AOL
yahoo
AOL
yahoo
bing
High view
Enthusiastic
galaxy
the whole network
The directories are compiled by real people. Directory panels evaluate a website and then rank it based on content alone.
Directories:
• AboutUs.org – A wiki-based web directory.
• Ansearch – Web search and directories focused on the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
• Best of the Web Directory: Lists well-designed, content-rich websites, categorized by topic and region. This is a paid service.
• JoeAnt: A community of editors from Go.com’s now-defunct volunteer-edited directory.
• Open Directory Project (also known as ODP or dmoz) – The largest directory on the Web. Your open content is reflected on many sites, including the Google Directory, as of July 20, 2011.
• Starting Points Directory: A general human-edited directory that organizes sites by category.
• Virtual Library of the World Wide Web (VLIB): the oldest directory on the Web.
• Yahoo! Directory – The first service that Yahoo! offered.
Metasearch engines are search engine sites that can include anywhere from 10 to 90 search engines on one site.
Metasearch engines:
infospace.com
info.com
Dogpile.com
excite.com
Search.com
WebCrawler.com
ixquick.com
Mamma.com
metatracker
Try an experiment. Pick a simple topic, like “publishing,” and look it up in several of these “books.” I bet you will be surprised at how much information you get from each of them.
I don’t know what I don’t know.