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Directories, like Yahoo www.yahoo.com, the Open Directory dmoz.org, and LookSmart www.looksmart.com, provide categorized lists of Web sites with a brief description of each site. You can navigate by going from menu to menu, making one selection after another until you finally get to the level where sites of the kind you are interested in are listed. You can also search through the database that contains the descriptions of all of them. The categories and descriptions are based on submissions by Web site owners, scrutinized and edited by professional or volunteer editors.
If you are looking for a summer camp in Maine or a recycling facility in Alabama, a directory is probably a good place to look. You are looking for a general category of things and that's how directories are organized.
While a directory categorizes Web sites and contains very little information about them (just the description), a search engine indexes all the information on all the Web pages it finds.
Directories are crafted by human beings, based on their judgement, like files in a file cabinet. If you happen to think like the people who built a particular directory, you may find it very easy to use; if your mind is organized differently, you may find their approach awkward and difficult to follow.
Search engines don't wait for someone to submit information about a site. Rather, they send out robot programs (called "crawlers") which surf the Internet and bring back the full text of the pages they find. Search engine indexes are generated automatically, based on the words and phrases that are found on Web pages. The largest search engines, like my favorite, AltaVista www.altavista.com, cover over 250 million Web pages. There is no human judgement filtering or rearranging the information before it gets to you. If you know how to use the query language effectively, you can go straight to what you want when you want it.
A directory takes you to the home page of a Web site, from which point you can explore to eventually get to what you want.
A search engine takes you to the very page on which the words and phrases you are looking for appear.
Use a directory when you only have a vague idea of what you want, and when you would appreciate prompts to guide you along.
Use a search engine when your aim is to get to a particular piece of information quickly.
When you want to find a great music site or a site devoted to your favorite kind of movie, use a directory.
When you want to know what song or movie a particular phrase is from, use a search engine.
Use a directory to get a list of major newspaper sites.
Use a search engine to find a quote from a newspaper column, even when you don't know the name of the paper or the columnist.
Use a directory for the kinds of things you'd expect to find in the Yellow Pages -- for businesses of certain kinds when you may not know the names of the businesses.
Use a search engine when you are looking for information about a particular product and know the product name and model number, but may not know the manufacturer.
Use a directory when you are in the mood to surf -- to go on a fun trip around the Web with no particular destination in mind, just following your impulses.
Use a search engine when you are serious and when you have limited time to find what you want.
Use a directory when you are looking for a site devoted to a celebrity.
Use a search engine when you are searching for an ordinary person by name.
Use a directory to find cooking-related sites.
Use a search engine to find a particular recipe, looking for it by name or by its ingredients.
Use a directory to get a list of four-year colleges in Massachusetts.
Use a search engine to find a particular paper written by a professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts.
Use a directory to see a list of sites devoted to alternative medicine or to cancer.
Use a search engine to learn more about a medicine your doctor just prescribed for you.
Use a directory to get a list of job-related Web sites.
Use a search engine to find the resume of a job candidate with the credentials and experience you want.
Use a directory to find Web sites dedicated to discussion of great literature.
Use a search engine to find a particular passage in a particular classic work, and perhaps the complete text of that book.
Use a directory to find sites devoted to buying and selling cars.
Use a search engine to find a page that talks about how to deal with the problems you've been experiencing with your 1969 Mustang.
Use a directory to find sites that deal with Windows-based software.
Use a search engine to find out the meaning of a particular error message you've been getting.
Use a directory to find travel guides.
Use a search engine to find the schedule for special trips on steam-engine-powered trains in South Africa.
Use a directory to find Web sites devoted to legal questions related to protection of intellectual property rights.
Use a search engine to find instances of plagiarism of your writing on the Web.
Use a directory to find Web sites devoted to trademark information.
Use a search engine to find out if a particular name, with unique capitalization, which you'd like to make a trademark, is already in use on the Web.
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For a thorough discussion of this topic, buy Richard's book Web Business
Bootcamp (published by Wiley) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471164194/brsamizdatexpres
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