Lesson 10:  Troubleshooting

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In the lesson on troubleshooting there were a lot of tips given to help with common searching problems.  These tips included:

• A search returning a huge number of documents.  The tip given was to try to think of some synonyms for the term used to start the search or adding at least two more specific words to the search string.

• If a search returns only a few documents, then maybe the search was being done in the wrong place, or the search terms weren't broad enough.  The problem could also be incorrect configuration of the search terms.  The tip given was to omit some of the terms, to try the search on another engine, metasearcher, directory, or specialty source.  The last tip given here was to ask for help--which scares me a little, because in Pettus, "help" means me!

• If a search returns a "404 file not found" message, this means the file has been moved, taken down, or renamed.  The suggestion given was to go back and do a phrase or field search.  Another tip was to try shortening the URL to see if the page might still be on the same server. 

• If a search returns a "server does not have a DNS entry" message, this means that your browser can't find the server.  It could mean that the network is busy or the server is down.  The thing to do when this happens is to check your spelling and try again. If it still doesn't work, you might be out of luck.

• If a search returns a "server error" or "server busy" message, this may mean that the server you're trying to reach might be offline, down, or very busy. 

• If you can't find the home page of a well-known product, try guessing or experimenting with different top level domain names.  If you are using FireFox as your browser, or if you're on a newer version of Netscape, type in the word without anything else and a lot of times you will be taken to the site automatically

My assignment for this lesson was to read the tips in about.com's Decoding Errors Messages column.  I will print this section out and keep it near my computer for future reference.  Those error messages can really be a pain!

Lesson 1 Search Engines   Lesson 2 Metasearch Engines   Lesson 3  Subdirectories   Lesson 4  Library Gateways  

Lesson 5  Evaluating WebPages   Lesson 6  Creating a Search Strategy   Lesson 7  Basic Search Tips  

Lesson 8  Boolean Logic   Lesson 9  Field Searching   Lesson 10  Troubleshooting Lesson 11  Clusty Search Engine 

     Chapter 12  All Things Google   Lesson 13  All Things Yahoo