Finding Information on the Internet

3. Better Searching

Using the correct search techniques can improve your chances of finding useful information.

3.1 Enter as many keywords as possible to refine the search.

• For example, a search on 'printers' will return over a million matching pages on some search engines.
• Refine this by entering 'bubblejet printers'. The first hits reported will be those including both 'printer' and 'bubblejet'.
• On many search engines, putting double speech marks around "bubblejet printer" forces a search for the exact phrase, with the two words together in this order.

3.2 Some search engines allow you to use special commands for greater precision.

• For example, AltaVista and some others allow you to put a '+' in front of a word to stipulate that it must be in the matched page and a '-' in front of a word to indicate that it must not be included. A similar effect can often be produced by using terms such as AND, OR and NOT.
• Some search engines let you use 'wild card' symbols in your query. You may be able to use '%' to stand for a single letter or the asterisk for one or more characters.
• AltaVista and other search engines also let you search specifically for illustrations. If you want to find only web pages with pictures of Pete Sampras, you simply search for 'image:sampras'.

3.3 Many directories group pages by category.

Using this feature, you can quickly narrow down the search area to a single category and search within that.

• For example, select the 'computers' category, then 'printers'. If you then search for 'bubblejet printers', the answers will come back very rapidly.

3.4 For a crash course in effective searching, spend a few minutes at The Spider's Apprentice.

• This site gives clear advice on which search engines to use for what. It also ranks performance, and updates you on latest search engine developments.