Web Search Basics

Hints for More Effective Searching

Searching

Search engines allow you to search the Internet for your topic. Searching the Internet is a bit like going to a flea market, in that you can find items of true value, but they are mixed in with items of little value. You can spend a great deal of time sifting, sorting, and selecting before you find something truly useful.

Choose Words Carefully

Develop a search plan. Use specific words to describe exactly what you’re looking for. Search engines are not intuitive. More general terms will give a larger number of results, so try to narrow your search. Choosing the right search terms is the key to finding the information you need. If you’re looking for general information on Belize, try Belize.

The same search on different search engines often produces different results. Search engines are far more different than most people think. For example, the overlap between the top 10 results on Google and the top ten results on Yahoo for the average search term is only 35 percent. Only 3.5 of Google’s top 10 results were in Yahoo’s top 10, and vice versa.

Carefully Evaluate

The Internet contains a wealth of information (billions of pages) published by governments, organizations, educational institutions, commercial enterprises, and private individuals. Since there are no standards for quality, users must carefully evaluate all information found on it, to make sure that it is reliable, accurate, unbiased, etc.  For help in evaluating Internet resources, go here.

Common Mistakes

Mixing up the Address and Search Input Fields

Both of these boxes are usually near the top of your browser. The address box is at the top of your browser and will normally be labeled “address”. The URL address, basically a Web site’s location on the Web, goes into the address input box. (Example: http://www.google.com/)

The search input area should be lower and is not always clearly labeled. Only search words or phrases should be entered into the search box.

Expecting Instant Success

Don’t expect instant success when searching the Web. While the search process has come a long way, it still takes a bit of effort to find exactly what you are looking for. The best thing to do when searching the Web is to be patient. The more experienced you become at narrowing your searches down, the faster and more enjoyable the process will become.

Hints

Start with a large search engine such as Google and then branch out with some of the smaller search engines.

Use Boolean Operators like “and,” “or,” and “not.” Most search engines support Boolean searches. This will cut out many unrelated documents.

Using “and” narrows a search by combining terms; it will retrieve documents that use both the search terms you specify. (Example: Portland and Maine )

Using “or” broadens a search to include results that contain either of the words you enter. (Example: children or kids)

Using “not” will narrow a search by excluding certain search terms. “Not” retrieves documents that contain one, but not the other, of the search terms you enter. (Example: Virginia not travel)

If you are looking for a specific phrase, use quotation marks. This tells the search engine to only retrieve pages that include these search terms exactly as you typed them. (Example: “Nobel Prize Winners 1989”)

Words with punctuation between them are treated as if they are surrounded in quotes. (Example: Ford.mustang/convertible gives the same results as “ford mustang convertible.”)

Use the “+” symbol when you want terms that must be returned in all of your search results. (Example: basketball +nba.) Include a space before the “+” sign.

Uppercase and lowercase letters are treated the same. To maintain a certain capitalization, put the word in quotes.

If your search results appear in a language other than English, select your preferred language in the search box menu.

Specific Hints for Google

Google searches are NEVER case sensitive.

By default, Google only returns pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include “and” between terms. The order in which the terms are entered will affect the search results.

Google ignores common words and characters such as “where” and “how,” as well as certain single digits and letters. They tend to slow down your search. If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a “+” sign in front of it.