Research Log Entry-unit 1, part 2

1. What question did you try to answer?
What are global hectares?

2. What terms did you select to begin?
Global Hectares
Global OR Hectares
“Global Hectares”

3. What web search engine or engines did you use?
I used the search engines Yahoo, Google, and Ask.

4. Search Techniques
a. What search terms did you use?
I used the words “Global Hectares” in combinations with Boolean Operators and punctuation.

b. What search techniques did you use?
I used three search techniques and tried them in all three search engines I choose:
1. Global Hectares
2. Global OR Hectares
3. “Global Hectares”

Search Results for Each Engine Listed:
Google
1. global hectares-3,730,000-information on what terms mean
2. global OR hectares-667,000,000-lots of unrelated sites
3. "global hectares"-14,500-information on the terms

Yahoo
1. global hectares-3,730,000-scientific information
2. global OR hectares-3,190,000,000-unrelated sites
3. “global hectares”-60,200-maps and other visuals

Ask
1. global hectares-284,000-visuals, articles
2. global OR hectares-84,780,000 related information only to science
3. “global hectares”-3,030-narrowed results
5. Evaluation
a. How did you evaluate your results?
I evaluated my search results by looking at the currency of the page, the depth of the information and how relevant the information was to my search.

b. What conclusions did you draw about the different search engines?
1. What was the same?
While searching my three terms in each engine, the aspect that was similar was that each engine gave me websites explaining the terms, “Global Hectares.”
2. What was different?
The difference for each engine and search were the variety of results to choose from. I was given visuals, articles, unrelated websites and information, scientific information on my topic and exact information.
3. Differences in numbers of results
Throughout all variations of my search terms, Yahoo was the engine that gave me the most results. I noticed Google gave me more variety when searching but Ask gave me the lowest number of results with yet the most useful information which I found surprising.

c. Why do you think the search engines behaved as they did?
Well, Yahoo is said to be the largest search engine which explains why I received the most results throughout my 3 searches on it. From the wiki search engine tab, I noticed Google and Ask, my results were little in number but seemed credible and more useful than my results on Google.

6. What other questions came into your mind as you carried out this exercise?
A big question that came to mind while carrying out this exercise is “If Ask seemed as if it was giving me the best results, why haven’t I used it before?”