Here's what the symbols preceding some sites mean:
B&P : Big and Popular though we may or may NOT like them.
**** or ***** : A site so good we judge it to be one of the best the net has to offer on that subject.
JUFF: A site we seriously judge as JUst For Fun!
CLN : A cool little number, a small website that does what it does almost perfectly.
2.yawn : Too dot boring! Not many on this list.
2.com: Too dot commercial, too many ads, or sales pitches, too wallet oriented, beware!
AH: All Humanity. These sites are for the betterment of all people everywhere, and we salute them.
Q: Quirky, quaint, and queer ; offbeat sites that are so weird they're wonderful!
AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT:
Here's what those symbols after the dot mean:
.com = commercial
.gov = government
.org = organization
.edu = education
.net = network
A general rule is for better and more truthful answers avoid the .com sites and go to the .orgs, usually non profit, or to .edus usually a college or university site. The .net sites usually have a network of other sites they're showing you. They can be very helpful too. There are also different endings for countries,.co.uk for the United Kingdom, and coming soon many more types of endings such as .arts.(But this site, Musea, is a .com, you say. What's up with that? I'll explain later)
SEARCH ENGINES
There are about 175 million (see how fast they're growing) websites. How many URL's (those are the addresses you type in) can you remember? So the first thing people on the net did was to set up directories of all these websites called search engines. (Even so the biggest search engines have only gotten around to listing about 1/3 of the sites - that means that 2/3 are still in limbo!
The best known search engine is Yahoo. But wait, don't go there yet. We'll get back to those yahoos later.
First I want to give you some smaller listings of sites to prepare you for search engines because search engines have their own headaches.
Start by reading the rest of this article and popping off to a site whenever you want to, then coming back. There really is no other intro to the net quite like this that I've been able to find since I began surfing. And I made it moronically simple - not because you're a moron, but because I needed it that simple before I could explain it to anyone else.
So where were we. Oh yes, some 1st smaller directories to the websites out there:
B & P www.web100.com Here's a listing of the 100 most popular websites . They also break the 100 down into major categories. A good place to start.
2.yawn www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/ch.htm If you can wade through the ads you'll find a daily listing of 5 websites covering all kinds of subjects. Check this daily and you're sure to find something new that you like.
Q www.voyeur.mckinley.com/cyi-bin/voyeur.cgi This is not what you think. (Go wash your mouth out with soap!) Every 5 seconds this site shows you 12 websites people are looking for in a search engine. It's like looking over 12 shoulders as they surf. And the thing that struck me the most was .... Well go see for yourself.
AH www.webbyawards The Webbys are the Oscars of the net. Since '97 they've been choosing the very best websites. And though some are very .com, most are indeed worthy.
CLN www.alt.culture Here's the best of the .alt (alternative) crowd. And though Musea is not listed (the notice must be in the mail) they do manage to list an amazing and broad collection of cool.
OK GO. EXPLORE... WHAT DO YOU THINK?
WHEN YOU GO TO A SEARCH ENGINE you usually find a busy front page with ads, categories, instructions, buttons to push, etc.. And almost all of them have all these features:
1. A space to type in some words describing what you are looking for. You then click on 'search' and the search engine searches its database and gives you a selection (sometimes in the MILLIONS!) related to those words.
2. A power search for detailed searching. This is because usually the first type of searching never works! You'll learn. You'll learn.
3. General categories like art, science, sports, news, etc. You click on one, say art, and it leads you to another directory of all art related topics: dance, theater, music, etc. Then click on one of these, music for example, and you get a listing of all kinds of music categories. This goes on until you find the teeny tiny category that interests you where it lists 10 - 25 or so sites on that topic. It's good for a general search.
4. Ads, fine print, and other junk that you may or may not be interested in.
Here's a site that tells you all about websites. It's a little dry but informative in spots at:
searchenginewatch.com
TO ME THERE ARE 3 LEVELS OF SEARCH ENGINES
I got the 3 tier idea from this site, Internet Search Resource at:
members.tripod.com/~GES227#1
LEVEL ONE: General searching. Best choices:
www.altavista.com
www.yahoo.com (?)
LEVEL TWO: Serious database searching:
www.hotbot.com
www.northernlights.com (example: most search engines list a site once. Both Hotbot & Northern Lights list Musea 75 times from 75 parts of our website!)
LEVEL THREE: Here you can go in either of 2 directions. (A) Mega search engines, search engines that search other search engines! 2 good ones are:
www.dogpile.com
www.metacrawler.com
(B) Search engines limited to specific fields of interest:
Q www.hotweird.com
www.bestunknownsites.com
www.projectcool.com
www.diysearch.com
www.submitplus.bc.ca/jayde (this site lists over 100 smaller search engines!)
PLUS Yahoo has a section that's just a listing of small websites. It's URL is too long. so just go to yahoo.com Then type in search engines and it'll take you to the list.
GETTING YOUR WEBSITE ON A SEARCH ENGINE sure helps traffic to your site. It's also very hard to do and may take from minutes to years. Musea is on virtually every big search engine and many smaller ones. We salute these search engines for listing us. Alta Vista was first. Also: Hotbot, Lycos, Excite, Google, Search.com, Look.smart, Snap, Go.to, Northern Lights, and Infoseek. (Add www at the front and .com at the end and you should have most of their URLs).
But did you notice no Yahoo on the list? Let's talk about Yahoo. It's definitely the 600 lb. gorilla in the Internet search engine zoo, but all is not well. I think they do a wonderful job of everything but their main purpose of cataloging websites. And I'll list a number of periphery services in this report that no one does better. But when it comes to listing sites they seem to take years. Yes years! The question then comes up, Are they years behind the times? Are their sites moldy oldies?
The answer is YES! The reason they're so stale is because they choose the sites they list, by hand instead of by computers like others do. But not only are these pickers slow, but their choices are ... well let me say it this way, not the brightest colors in the crayon box! And they're slooooowly becoming the grandfather of the Internet. Get with it Yahoo!
On to GOVERNMENT SITES or Back to Contents or Main Page.