Searching the Web for Chess
Even if you have been searching the web for years,
this page will offer you some guidance on improving
your results. And if you are relatively new to web
research, you will learn a lot here, especially from
the tutorial links below.
Best Search Engines
Search engines are the key tools for accessing
information on the web and will give you the most
complete results.
Google.com
This is the fastest and most reliable search engine on the web and it is
always the best place to begin, especially if you are in a hurry and only
want the best results. However, because Google ranks sites based on how
often they are linked to by other sites, it often returns only the most
popular links. You might need to try some other engines to find information
that nobody else knows about yet.
Yahoo
Now one of the more useful supplements to Google because their search engine
tries to list internal pages that are often missed by other engines.
Alexa
A relatively new search tool from Amazon.com, offering ranking information
by popularity and all the other useful info that Amazon offers at their
sales site. There is even the chance to tell people what you think and
write a review.
Internet
Archive’s Way Back Machine
For lost sites of days
gone by, nothing beats the web archive.
AlltheWeb.com
“All the Web” tends to return the most unique hits of any search engine.
You will need to take some time here trying out search terms and wading through
the results to identify what’s most useful. But when you are trying to discover
obscure information, this is one of the best places to go after Google.
AltaVista.com
AltaVista was one of the first powerful search engines and is still one of
the best for generating lots of results. See Richard Seltzer’s article
on How
to Get the Most Out of an AltaVista Search. I find AltaVista’s directory
to be useful.
Other search engines include HotBot, NorthernLight,
and AskJeeves.
For a good directory of engines, check out Proteus
Internet Search.
Chess Directories
Directories help sort through and categorize
the web, listing only the better resources on any
topic. You can find more directories listed under Links
to Links.
La
Mecca Chess Encyclopedia
One of the better chess directories on the web is “Click! Click the
Link.”
Chess
World’s Search
They call it a “search engine,” but it’s a very selective directory.
Yahoo’s
Chess Directory
Yahoo offers one of the most complete directories on most topics.
Seven Tips for Searching Smart
1) Be Specific and Use Quotes
When you use precise terms or phrases, you will find exactly what you want
more quickly. Putting phrases in quotations (for example, “urusov
gambit“) will return only results where those precise words appear
in that exact order. Quotes are expecially useful when looking for games
online (especially games played in club tournaments that might never make
it into the major databases) by putting the moves you are looking for in
quotes, thus: “1.e4
e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nf3.”
2) Practice Boolean Searching
There are two basic techniques of boolean searching: AND (or +) and OR. You
can use AND to narrow your search. For example, the search term “urusov” returns
all sorts of results, including sites about people with that name. Combining “urusov” AND “chess” will
return more specific results. Most search engines today automatically insert
AND into any search of multiple terms. To broaden a search, you can use
OR. So, for example, if I want to do a broad search on my favorite opening
I might try “bishop’s opening” OR “urusov” to get the
widest coverage. You can also use other terms, including the minus sign
(-) to indicate that you wish to exclude certain results, the wild card
symbol (*) to truncate words so as to include various spellings, and quotation
marks to return specific phrases. Consult the user’s guide to your favorite
search engine or one of the tutorials below for more details on how best
to use these techniques.
3) Collect Keywords and Get Multilingual
If you want to find everything on a particular subject, you should expect
to do several searches using as many different keywords as you can think
of. As you conduct your search, keep track of words that crop up in the
better results that you find and jot them down. You should especially try
to collect alternate names and words from other languages. For example,
the Urusov Gambit is alternately called “Ouroussoff,” “Urusoff,” “Urusovuv,” “Ponziani
Gambit,” and “Keidanski Gambit.” Or if I were searching
for games beginning “1.e4 e5 2.Bc4,” I would want to also try
alternate language designations for Bishop, such as L for Laufer (German)
or A for Alfil (Spanish). There are several listings of Chess
Vocabularies in many languages online (including this convenient table
of Chess
Vocabulary in 5 Languages). A convenient table of Alternative
Chess Piece Identifier Letters is also offered by Chessville. For more
help with translations (including translating the international sites you
discover), try AltaVista’s excellent Babelfish site.
4) Try Several Different Search Engines or
Meta-Search Engines
Not all search engines are the same and they will all return different results.
You might try out a meta-search engine, which will search several engines
at once, to get a sense of which engines will be most useful for your specific
search. Some good meta-search sites are Search.com, Surfwax.com, ixquick.com, dogpile.com,
and highway61.com (the
most humorous of the bunch). See the UC
Berkeley Library’s tutorial on meta-searching for more information about
meta-search engines and a list of their rankings.
5) Look under the Hood and Customize Your Engine
Not many people know that most of the major search engines not only explain
how they find results but offer users an opportunity to customize the way
those results are returned. At Google, for example, you can click the link
for Advanced
Search to customize or read All
about Google to get help in using their engine most effectively for
your purposes.
6) Search Smart for Images and Games
If you are looking for images on the web, a good place to start is Google’s
Image Search. But there are other ways to search using any engine – you
just have to learn to think like a webmaster to find what you want. When
looking for images, it’s best to remember that the two most common image
file formats on the web are .jpg (for photos generally) and .gif (for graphics).
Entering a search term along with either “.jpg” or “.gif” will
return pages that match your term and contain images. For example, try Fischer+Spassky+.jpg
at Google, and you will be able to track down images associated with
the famous Fischer-Spassky match of 1972. To find games from that match,
you can try searching using the most common game file formats, PGN or CB.
For example, try Fischer+Spassky+PGN
at Google. One good tool for finding royalty free stock images is Foto-search.
7) Look into the Archive for Lost Sites
Remember that if it was ever on the web it is still on the web. That might
be an embarrassing truth if you have ever posted a stupid message in a
forum or put up a childish site as a kid. But it is great to know if you
are looking for those long-lost web articles that seem to have disappeared.
It especially helps if you have the old URL (web address) of the site in
question, since you can plug that right into the Internet
Archive’s Way Back Machine and travel back in time. The Internet
Archive cannot bring back Club Kasparov, unfortunately, due to copyright
restrictions I would guess. But most any other site that was out there
is still out there for the searching. The Archive also has a Special
Collections area and will soon be able to allow keyword searches. When
searching with Google for more recently vanished sites, you can always
try Google’s “Cached” feature
that gives you the site as it appeared when Google’s web crawlers last
found and listed it.
Tutorials and Advice
on Searching Smart on the Web
Chess
Pages – Free Chess
Beware that these pages take a while to load at first (likely due to very
slow off-site tracking software). The idea is to provide tutorials on how
best to use the net for chess for complete beginners. Could be very helpful
for its intended audience.
Search
Engine Watch Tips
These tips from searchenginewatch.com help
you to think like a search engine engineer so you can make better use of
the top search tools.
Pandia
Search Central
Offers great tutorials on using the web efficiently to find what you want.
Search
Engine Showdown
A “users’ guide to web searching” from Montana State University
does a great job of describing the various search engines out there and offering
advice on how to use them effectively..
Learn
the Net (English language version)
Now owned by About.com and therefore less usable and more commercial, this
site nonetheless offers excellent tips and advice for beginners on searching
and using the web. Use the navigation bar on the left of the page (under “How
To”) to reach the content and avoid the more prominent links to paid
advertisers displayed on each page.
