Search Tips for the World Wide Web

 

The Internet is a vast resource of information with topics from Anaconda to Zydeco. The information is there, the problem is finding it. There are several search engines available to find a certain topic or answer to a particular question. The key to finding the information you want, is in how you approach the topic. Each search engine has its’ own search tips, a quick review of them will help aid you in the search.  Here are a few general tips that can help with the search process.

 

Tip One:

Be specific. Ask yourself a question regarding the topic of interest.  Focus, the more specific the terms you include and exclude, the more focused your search.

A good search engine is http://www.google.com./ For example in your search if you want information on Godiva chocolate start your search with Godiva chocolate not the broad topic of chocolate. This helps narrow your focus. As a lover of chocolate, the broad topic chocolate can take you in several directions.  By narrowing the topic, you can find just the flavor you wanted and not have to sort through a lot of tasteless chocolate.

 

Tip Two:

Visit the help section of your search engine for particular tips on searching with this engine.  Each search engine has a help section that is easy to access.

 

Tip Three:

Choose several key words or a question regarding your topic.  Key words are words that describe your topic.  Put these words or question in the search area. When your search comes back with 24,000 items you will want to narrow the search by putting key words in quotation marks. This tells the search engine that you want only the sites that have the key words in the specific order that you listed them.

At Easter you want to find information on your favorite Easter candy Cadbury chocolate. If you put Cadbury chocolate in the search engine you will have over 23,000 hits. When you take the same words Cadbury chocolate and put them in quotation marks the field is narrowed to 5,000 sites

 

Tip Four:

Use plus (+) and minus (-) symbols between key words to expand or narrow your search.  With the plus symbol between the key words, the search engine will usually find results that contain both words.  If you include a minus symbol, the search engine generally excludes the word that appears after the symbol. Continuing the Cadbury chocolate search if you search with chocolate-Cadbury the search will result in about 300 sites.

 

Tip Five:

Combine symbols in the search area to help obtain targeted results.  A combination of plus and minus signs with quotations can further narrow or broaden the results in the search process.

In searching for the ultimate chocolate Cadbury egg, I tried the search terms  chocolate-“Cadbury eggs”. This search resulted in 13 sites of chocolate information.

 

Tip Six:

Trim the URL. If you have found a specific site that looks good, you can often trim the URL back to the original home page step-by-step and possibly find other interesting related topics. This is also a good strategy to try when a page is missing.

 

 

 

 

Additional sites for more help in searching.

 

Four Nets for Better Searching -http://webquest.sdsu.edu/searching/fournets.htm

Alta Vista Search - http://help.altavista.com/search/search_cheat

Web Searching Tips - http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/index.html

 

Activity:

 

Now let’s put these tips to work. I did a search on the Google.com search engine about southern quilt patterns. Note the number of results from each search. As you use the different tips compare the number of results. There is not a completely right or wrong way to searching. By using some of the tips above, you can refine your search.

 

  1. Choose the search engine (Google.com).
  2. Type in the words southern quilt patterns.  (5710 results)
  3. Try “southern” + “quilt patterns” (822 results)
  4. Now type in “southern quilt”+patterns (3 results)

 

Now it is your turn:

Try searching for spicy recipes that use habanera peppers.