Do you have any tips or tricks when searching the Internet?

Answer 1

Use Boolean Operators
Boolean operators are words that allow you to combine search terms in most search engines.
AND
AND tells the search engine to find both terms on the same site. For instance, entering "business AND ethics" would instruct the search engine to find web pages that contain both words, "business" and "ethics."
OR
OR instructs the search engine to find one term or the other. Entering "business OR ethics" would cause the search engine to look for web pages that contain either the word "business" or the word "ethics," but not necessarily both words. As you can imagine, if you use OR, the search engine could return thousands of sites.
OR is most useful when the same term may appear in two different ways. For instance, you could use "national football league"* OR NFL to find web pages about the national football league.

*If you want your search engine to search for an exact phrase, put quotation marks around the phrase.

NOT
NOT tells the search engine to find pages that contain the first word but not the second. This limitation is helpful when you know your search term is likely to appear with another term that does not interest you.
NEAR
NEAR only appears in some search engines, but it tells the search engine only to return web pages in which the terms are near each other. Usually the terms are within a few words of each other.

Symbols
For many search engines, you can use "+" as a substitute for AND and "-" as a substitute for NOT. You can also use quotation marks to indicate that you want to find an exact phrase.

Answer 2

Top ten tips for searching the web:

Just because you find it on the web does not mean it is true or accurate!

Narrow your searches to be more successful by using " ", + or - signs or other Boolean Logic formats. Visit the specific search engine's help or advanced searching section for more information to improve your chances of finding information you want.


Choose the best search engine(s) for the job. Try more than one search engine and compare results. Don't forget to use sites maintained by reputable experts such as the electronic databases found at InfOhio (including Britannica,SIRS & EBSCO).

Just because an item is listed first does not mean it is the best resource.
In fact, on many sites the first 5 to 10 entries are there because their
owners paid the search engine company to put them there!

Pay attention to the addresses of sites, especially the part following the "dot" which gives some indication of type of site (.com, .gov, .edu, .net, etc.).


Sites with very similar names are easily confused. Some parties prey upon the searchers with these sound alike sites or take over abandoned domain names.

Sites with a "~" character in them are usually personal opinion sites even if the rest of address points to a university or other usually reliable source of information.

Get to the "root" of the site. Starting from the right, delete parts of an address to get to main or sponsoring site. For example- starting with http://www.uakron.edu/biology/bathpres.html, takes you to the Bath Nature Preserve, removing "bathpres.html" takes you to the Biology Dept and removing "biology/bathpres.html" takes you to the University of Akron main home page.

Learn how search engines work and about the search engine industry.
Remember most are there to make money!

Research the sites that you find. Who runs the site, how reliable is the information, is it out of date, does it contradict other reliable resources, how has the site changed over time, etc.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Answer 3

If you use the "advanced search" option, then you get pretty much the same results from any search engine. I like yahoo and google best. Google has a better advanced search selection than yahoo, but sometimes yahoo give you better results anyway.

Answer 4

if you are looking for something specific with more than one word - put it in quotations. when it searches - it will look for those words all together. for example: "tips on searching the internet" it will locate web pages with those words all together rather that spread out.

Answer 5

Example if you are looking for a specific brand and cannot find it such as baby clothes. Look up baby stores click on different brands and then search the brand.

Answer 6

Toolbars only cause more problems.

Sent your homepage to www.yahoo.com or www.google.com

Both are very good websites when searching for anything!

Answer 7

be specific with your search. if you don't have the time, do it later. have fun though.

Answer 8

keep away from n e thin dodgy