What drives your searches? Isn’t it ironic that “Google,” “Yahoo,” “MSN” and “eBay” are still among the top search terms? It tells us people are definitely using search engines, but a lot of them aren’t typing in “.com” or any other TLD (top level domain) extension (.com, .net, .org, .info, etc.). If you don’t type in “Google.com” or “Yahoo.com” or any other complete web site address, your browser thinks you want to run a search and will run that search with your default search engine. In other words, you’re probably using Google to find Google. That’s the ironic part. Sound confusing?

We take a lot for granted in the world of information technology (IT) — probably in most worlds. No one’s born knowing, but we expect that people will generally catch on to the basics. Am I right? Well, it does make communication more efficient (shorter) if we can expect a certain level of understanding. I’ve had people apologize in advance because they have a “stupid” question. What they generally mean is that they have a basic question and feel like an idiot for having to ask something rudimentary.

It’s unfortunate anyone feels that way. It puts a freezing effect on learning. No one wants to be on the receiving end of joking comments, especially in response to a simple question. So people stop asking basic questions and stuff becomes harder because people lack a basic understanding of things. It’s sort of a vicious cycle. You don’t want people to know what you don’t know, so you don’t ask and then you don’t know. You know?

Instead of waiting for users to fill in the gaps for themselves, I’m providing a couple of basic tips that those of us in the IT world have discovered some people just don’t know. (And for those of you who know and think it’s funny others don’t know, stop laughing and start teaching. Keeping others in the dark is a pathetic way to get an ego boost!)

Tip No. 1 in Internet Browsing: A web site address is always the catchy web site name plus the TLD extension:

“Google.com” not “Google”
“Yahoo.com” not “Yahoo”
“Wetwaresolutions.com” not “Wetware Solutions”

It’s very important to know the TLD of the web site you want to visit. Otherwise, you may well be taken to a very different site than the one you sought. For example, “Whitehouse.gov” is the official government site for the Whitehouse. “Whitehouse.Com” and Whitehouse.Org” take you to two very different sites run by private individuals or entities. A person or entity can register different versions of a domain name (future web site address) with different TLDs and direct all the traffic to a particular site. For example, the government may have wanted to spring for the additional $5.99 or whatever registration price it pays to register the names “Whitehouse.Com” and “Whitehouse.Org” to assure that anyone typing in those other names were all sent to the official government web site for “the Whitehouse.” But, why make things simple for citizens?

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the fact that Whitehouse.com is privately owned as long as Internet visitors understand they are indeed visiting different sites. The way to do that is to educate other Internet users and educate yourself. Don’t be afraid to question who owns the site and what they are trying to accomplish with their web site. For the most part, sites owned by the government are trying to give you as little information as possible and sites owned by private individuals or entities are trying to give you their version of information, usually where to buy something. I’m only half kidding.

Actually, there are many useful and necessary government and privately owned sites. The point is you can’t make any assumptions about the site owner, the site, or any information contained on the site. The first, best way to avoid assumptions about the site you’re visiting is to make sure you’re visiting the site you wanted. In other words, know the web address and type it in full or bookmark it (unless you really are running a blind search for any web site that might have information you need on a particular topic).

In fact, typing in Whitehouse and expecting your browser to know you mean Whitehouse.gov is a little like saying you want to go to Washington and then being surprised when you wind up in Washington state instead of D.C. Or like saying you want to go to Athens and winding up in Athens, Georgia, instead of Athens, Greece. City names are often insufficient; it’s important to say what country and state you want, too. Similarly, an Internet address is incomplete without that top-level domain (.com or .net or whatever) tacked onto the end.

If you want to see who has registered a particular name, visit: http://www.whois-search.com/

A visit there will tell you that Whitehouse.Org (as of this blog date) is owned by
Satire On-line
245-M Mount Hermon Road, Suite 137
Scotts Valley,CA
95066

. . . and that name is not due to expire until September 4, 2015, so they will be spreading satire throughout the Net for a very long time.

Tip No. 2 in Internet Browsing: A differently colored and often also underlined term, phrase or sentence on a web page — like Wetware Solutions — is usually a hyperlink.

That means that text is “linked” to a web site address. When you click on it, the browser program you’re using to view the text will automatically type in the full web site address for that link. I say usually because some web site publishers unfortunately may use font coloring and underlining to emphasize text rather than designate links. This is considered bad form in the web development community because it toys with a convention.

Because many hyperlinks are simplified words, like Google, rather than the more cumbersome web site address like http://www.google.com/, we web developers may have inadvertently confused some users into thinking they don’t need to type “Google.com” in the address or locator bar at the top of their browsers to get to the web site for that search engine. We’re sorry. The truth is a hyperlink could be any term or phrase, or even an image — and the underlying web address can lead you anywhere, even to a site you would not want to visit.

Tip No. 3 in Internet Browsing: If you hover (pause with your mouse cursor) on a hyperlink (colored/underlined text or an image), your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Safari, etc.) will generally show you the web address to which the text or image is linked:

Internet Explorer, Firefox and Netscape will reveal the web address at the bottom in the “status bar.” The status bar will show you what is loading, what you’re going to be visiting, whether a site is secure, and general information of that nature. I would recommend you always have your status bar active. If you see it (an extra bar at the bottom), it’s active. If you don’t see it, go to the menu at the top of your browser and, under “View,” select “Status Bar.” A checkmark will appear and now you’re able to view the status bar. Try moving your mouse over a hyperlink on this page without clicking on it, and see what shows up in the status bar.

In the Opera browser, there’s no status bar. A “tip” (pop-up message, but less obstructive) will appear when you pause on a link and the tip will show you the web address where the link will take you. I’m not sure how this is revealed in Safari since I’m not a Mac user. Feel free to comment if you know.

Tip No. 4 in Internet Browsing: A program is a collection of source code which performs one or more functions. A search engine is a program which helps you run a search (function). Some search engines masquerade as web sites. In short, Google.Com, Yahoo.Com, MSN.Com, A9.Com, Ask.Com are all search engines (read this tip one more time for good measure).

Your “default search engine” is the search engine your browser primarily uses to conduct a search for you. Firefox doesn’t really have a default search engine. It has an integrated search tool bar at the top with a pull down menu (the little down arrow next to the icon) which allows you to immediately select a number of search engines in which to run your searches. This is very useful because it means you don’t have to visit a bunch of different web sites to run a search. You run a search by typing in keywords and hitting the Enter key. If you want to try the same keywords in a difference search engine, just select a different search engine from the pull down menu and hit Enter.

I think Internet Explorer defaults to MSN, which is fast becoming a decent search engine, in my opinion. If you have Internet Explorer and want to learn how to change your default search engine, try running a search for that. Type in “change default search engine in IE.” (These are your keywords — search terms). Hit Enter and see what comes up.

Final tip: give yourself a better Internet experience by taking the time to learn the basics. Especially if you’re still stuck using a slow dial-up modem connection, learning basics (like typing the full web site address in the address window) is going to get you where you want to go a lot faster.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 15th, 2006 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Web Browsing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.