The problem with search engines isn't that they don't
find the info you want but that they find too much info.
find the info you want but that they find too much info.
How do search engines work?
Search engines put together a database of sites by sending "spiders" or "robots" to crawl through the Web, going from link to link. When spiders get to a website, they index most of the words on the available pages. When you use a search engine, the engine scans its database of sites to match your keywords to those same words in page locations of the database.
Search engines put together a database of sites by sending "spiders" or "robots" to crawl through the Web, going from link to link. When spiders get to a website, they index most of the words on the available pages. When you use a search engine, the engine scans its database of sites to match your keywords to those same words in page locations of the database.
Search Tip #1:
Be specific. The more narrowed down you can get your searches from the beginning, the more successful your search usually will be. For example, if you were searching for coffee, you'd get way more results back than you could use. However, if you narrowed that down to roasted Arabica coffee in Detroit Michigan, you'd be more successful.
Search Tip #2:
One thing that can save you search time is very simple - put your search phrase in quotes.
When you use quotation marks around a phrase, you are telling the search engine to only bring back pages that include these search terms exactly how you typed them in order, proximity, etc. This tip works in almost every search engine and is very successful in bringing back focused results. If you're looking for an exact phrase, put it in quotes. Otherwise, you'll come back with a huge jumble of results.
Here's an example: "long haired cats". Your search will come back with these three words in proximity to each other and in the order you intended them to be.
Search Tip #3:
Another simple trick is using addition and subtraction to make your search results more relevant.
For example, if you're searching for Tom Ford, but you get lots of results for Ford Motors, just combine a couple of web search basics to get better results: "tom ford" -motors. Now your results will come back without all those pesky car results.
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Search Tip #4:
Booleans (pronounced boo lee ans) can be used in most major search engines when they allow some kind of advanced searching. The most popular boolean operators are AND, OR and NOT. Booleans are a lot like the + and - symbols. AND means "include all of the words," OR means "include any of the words" and NOT means "exclude." For example, if you're looking for info on music and dancing enter music AND dancing. Your search will bring back sites that only include both those words.
Search Tip #5:
If you'd like to limit your searches to a specific domain, such as .edu, .org, .gov, and others, you can use the site: command to accomplish this. This works in most popular search engines and is a great way to narrow your searches to a very particular level. For example, say you only wanted to search U.S. government-related sites for something. You could limit your search results to only government sites simply by typing site:.gov "my query". This will bring back results only from sites that are in the .gov high-level domain.
Search Tip #6:
You can use Google to search within a site if the site doesn't have a built-in search feature. Simply use this command in the search bar to search within a site: the word site, then a colon, then the URL of the website you'd like to search within and your search text. For example, site:orha-ocala.com "director on duty" plugged into Google will bring back search results only from this domain (ORHA website) that are related to director on duty.
Search Tip #7:
You can actually search within a Web address using the "inurl" command via Google, this allows you to search for words within the URL, or Uniform Resource Locator. This is just another interesting way to search the web and find sites that you might not have found by just entering in a query word or phrase. For example, if you only want to find results from sites that have the word marshmellow in their URL, you would plug this query into Google's search bar: inurl:marshmellow. Your search results will only contain websites with that word in their URL.
Search Tip #8:
You can use "wildcard" characters to throw a broader search net in most search engines. These wildcard characters include *, #, and ? with the asterisk being the most common. Use wildcards when you want to broaden your search. For example, if you are looking for sites that discuss trucking, don't search for truck, search for truck*. This will return pages that contain the word "truck" as well as pages that contain "trucks", "trucking", "truck enthusiasts", "trucking industry", and so on.
Search Tip #9:
You can use an extremely simple web search shortcut to search for a word on a particular web page using any browser. Press CTRL +F together then type in the word you're looking for into the search field box that pops up.
Search Tip #10:
Use more than one search engine. Don't fall into the rut of using only one search engine for all your search needs. Every search engine returns different results. Plus, there are many search engines that focus on specific niches: games, blogs, books, forums, etc. The more comfortable you are with a good variety of search engines, the more successful your searches are going to be (see the list below to get started).
It's easy to skim the surface of your favorite search engine and only use the most prominent features; however, most search engines have a wide variety of advanced search options, tools, and services that are only available to those dedicated searchers that take the time to search them out. All of these options are for your benefit - and can help make your searches more productive.
In addition, if you're just starting out learning how to search the web, it's easy to be overwhelmed with just the sheer amount of information that is available to you, especially if you're searching for something very specific. Don't give up! Keep trying, and don't be afraid to try new search engines, new web search phrase combinations, new web search techniques, etc.
Search engines:
These track you: AOL, Ask, Bing, Google, Yahoo - also try Internet Archive
These don't track: DuckDuckGo, Yippy, Ixquick - learn more > HERE
Credit: kidzworld.com, lifewire.com
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