Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 01:30:36 -0500 From: Bob Rankin Subject: TOURBUS - 09 Dec 1997 - Website Finders _________ ____________ ________ __________ _____________ ___ _ / | / | | / | \ | | W-O-W, I-T-'S F-R-E-E ! | / | \ |__________|__________/__________|__________|___________/ | \ / /______|----\ | Get the latest news and tips on MICROSOFT OFFICE |//////| | | Free weekly guide from award winning Woody Leonhard |//////| | | *** Rated 5 stars by "Office Computing" magazine *** |//////| | | Join now! WOW@wopr.com -or- |//////| | \________________________________________________________|______|____| / \ / \ / \ \___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/ TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: Website Finders Several times on the TOURBUS, we've highlighted search engine sites, but for the most part, they've been general purpose search tools such as AltaVista or "meta" searchers like Dogpile. Today, I've got two special purpose search sites for you. But first, a word from our long-time sponsor Twin Peaks Trading Post... +------- VISIT SANTA'S SNACK BAR ------- -------+ Holidays stressing you out - need help shopping? Shop on-line at Twin Peaks Gourmet Trading Post. Pumpkin FudgeSwirl Cheesecake, Sugarfree Spiced Cranberry Sauce! Prizes to be won - Maybe by you! Be the "hostess with the mostess" - Make holiday shopping a delight Gourmet treats - Gift certificates - Corp. gifts - Sampler packs +------- VISIT SANTA'S SNACK BAR ------- -------+ If you've ever had trouble finding the website for a particular company or organization, read on. Sometimes you know part of a web address or a company name, but without the exact web address, you can't get anywhere. Is there a hyphen in the name? Do you spell out the company name, or use initials? Does it end with COM, NET or ORG? The rapid growth of the Internet means common and easy to use web site addresses (called domains) are becoming harder to obtain. Case in point: Last month, I pointed TOURBUS readers to www.ama.org, which I thought was the address for the American Medical Association. Bzzzzt! Wrong answer - that's the American MARKETING Association. (The docs have set up shop at www.ama-assn.org) WebSitez and WebFinder are two "website finder" tools that can help when you're looking for the website of a company or organization. Instead of looking at the information stored inside a website, these tools search a large database of domain names using keywords you supply. WebSitez -------- Your postal carrier may not mind if you misspell a word in an address, but on the net it's a different story. If you type even one wrong character in a web address, you'll be greeted with a cryptic message such as 'The server does not have a DNS entry'. WebSitez gives users a friendly and fast place to turn for help when they have only part of a name. Pop on over to ...enter in part of a company or domain name and presto, Websitez returns all the matches. If you own a domain name, you can also use it to see if anyone is "poaching", or using a domain name that's suspiciously similar to yours. You can use keywords to search for the website you're after, or just browse through the WebSitez directory, which lists sites for various topics such as Animals, Business, Games, Health, Music and Politics. WebSitez is fast, but it has one significant flaw: You can only enter one keyword to search for. That means you'll probably have a hard time finding an organization with multiple words in its name, especially if the names are common words. For example, if you search for "American" or "Medical" or "Association", you'll get thousands of irrelevant hits. However, I did find that in some cases, you can simply leave out the blank between the words and get better results. WebFinder --------- WebFinder is a little-known but useful tool that's similar to WebSitez. Brought to you by InterNIC, the domain registration company, WebFinder boasts a complete database that includes military, government and sites outside the USA. Visit ...and you can enter one or more keywords describing the site. You can also specify a physical location with or without the keywords. So in addition to finding websites associated with an organization, you can ask for a list of all websites that are based in a city or country. If you want to find travel-related sites based in Kuala Lumpur, this is the tool to use! (Pay attention to upper/lower case in that WebFinder address - it's important.) Which One Is Best? ------------------ It really depends on your needs. WebSitez can find sites if you know just a piece of the domain name, but limits you to a single keyword. WebFinder has a larger database, supports multi-keyword searching, but sometimes takes a long time to respond. Try them both and see which one suits you best. See you next time! --Bob *----------------------[ GIVE A GEEK A GIFT ]-----------------------* What do you give a computer nerd who already has all the gadgets? Easy - a new operating system to make it all work better! Dr. Bob's NO B.S. GUIDE TO LINUX book makes it easy to run Unix on an ordinary PC. Companion CD-ROM includes Linux Pro, Apache web server and tons of freeware. 350 plain English pages - $29.95 *---- SAVE $5 ------- ------- SAVE $5 ---* P.S. - TOURBUS PLUS subscribers save 25% off the cover price of Dr. Bob's books - a savings of $8.75 on the Linux title. For more info, see =====================[ Tourbus Rider Information ]=================== The Internet Tourbus - U.S. Library of Congress ISSN #1094-2238 Copyright 1995-97, Rankin & Crispen - All rights reserved Archives on the Web at http://www.TOURBUS.com Join: Send SUBSCRIBE TOURBUS Your Name to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Leave: Send SIGNOFF TOURBUS to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM PROMOTE your business on the Internet Tourbus. Reach over 80,000 people in a Net-friendly way. Just a few ad slots left in December. Contact BobRankin@MHV.net for more information. =====================================================================