A Usenet Search Engine allows users to comb through the thousands of posts and files contained on the numerous newsgroups that make up this portion of the Internet. The Usenet is not as broadly-publicized and, therefore, is not as widely known or used as are other forms of Internet communication technology. This is unfortunate as there are myriad advantages to this form of communication and there are security enhancements that make it more private and safe than many other forms of peer-to-peer file sharing.
Searching Usenet requires more of a specialist search technology than other types of search engines. A typical internet search will return possibly millions of pages based on a few keywords and those pages will be scattered all over the Internet. An internet search enginedetermines the relevance of any given page by various algorithms and, as any Internet user knows, there is no overarching organizational scheme to the Internet at large. Suffixes such as dot-com, dot-net, dot-org and are essentially meaningless at this point and cannot be relied upon to define the content the pages on those sites contain.
Usenet search technology benefits from searching through a service which is hierarchically-organized by design. For example, if one limits their search to only a few newsgroups whose content is relevant, they can be assured that the returned results will not be spammed content or other attempts at misguiding navigating to a user into the wrong page. Newsgroups are very well maintained where organization is concerned and being able to drill down intothis way is a feature that should be offered by any Usenet search service. It saves a great deal of time and effort and allows users to expand and contract search parameters intelligently as they go along.
A Usenet based search engine also allows the user to search for only specific types of content. On newsgroups, any file that is intended to be downloaded and used on a computer is called a "binary". One can search only groups which have binary files attached to the posts to eliminate irrelevant returns in their results. Compare this to a regular Internet search where one is looking for pictures of dogs, as an example. One will likely get pages of information which are stories about dogs, drawings of dogs, products for dogs and so forth. With a newsgroups search, one can simplyspecify "pictures of dogs" and search for binaries group where there are sure to be many examples of what is desired.
Search engine services for Usenet are available all over the Internet. One can specify the length of time since the post was made in their search, which groups they wish to search and much more. There are few more efficient ways to find information. Of course, basic text-string searches are also very easy which allows a user to find specific conversations which are of interest to them. These can be narrowed down by group focus to make sure those results returned are always relevant.
Using a Usenet Search Engine Interested This: