Sherlockians, this is  your most challenging case.  This will determine if you are a Super Sleuth or just a sleuth.  You must find  a "needle in  cyberspace".  You must look carefully and document your answers.  Using the major search engines on the Web, find  the best way to look for a  "needle."

Fill out the chart on your worksheeet, noting the number of hits you receive in each search engine for the word "needle" and the phrase "space needle."  Then, answer the questions at the  bottom of the page.  Remember to click the back button on the browser to return to this page.
 
 

SEARCH  ENGINE	SEARCH   FOR: "NEEDLE"	SEARCH  FOR: "SPACE NEEDLE"
Excite
HotBot
InfoSeek
WebCrawler
Yahoo

1.  Which  search engine would be the best if you were looking  for something very obscure?

2.  Did  searching   for "space needle" always result in more of fewer hits than searching for "needle"?  Why?

3.  Which search  engine seemed to display results quickest?

4.  Try another search.  This time, look  for sites  that contain all of these words:  "needle," "sleeping"  and "beauty."  (Hint: on many search engines you can specify that certain words MUST be included, by adding a "+" in front of the word:  examples are: +needle+sleeping+beauty.)