How to Conduct an Internet Search

The Internet is a remarkable tool. Search engines produce vast amounts of information on almost any topic in seconds. However, searching through data can be frustrating when it is not what you are looking for. For example, 12,000 hits returned on Julius Caesar are useless when you need a recipe for Caesar Salad. The trick is learning to navigate properly and use the search engine language.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Basic Internet Searching

1. Locate your search bar. If you have one, it will look like a rectangle that resembles the address bar. It may be empty, or it may read, "Type a question for help." It is normally at the top of the internet browser window. If you do not have one, open a new window and type www.google.com without punctuation into the address bar. Press Enter.

2. Type a few words describing your request into the search bar. Punctuation, capitalization and grammar are not required. Do not use the articles: a, an, the.

3. Click the search button next to the box.

4. Skim through the descriptions. If you see something of interest, click on the blue link to go to that page. At the bottom, you will see page numbers. Click on them for additional pages of results.

5. Change your search terms if the results are off-topic. Continue to the next section to learn how to refine search results.

Narrowing and Improving Search Results

1. Choose specific search terms. Search engines recognize "kitten food" without punctuation better than "What kind of food should I feed my new kitten?"

2. Pick exact terms by using quotation marks whenever possible. Quotation marks narrow the search to that exact term only. If you enter the words "chicken feed" without punctuation, the search engine brings up any site containing both words. Recipe tips are side-by-side with information on raising farm chickens. To purchase food for chickens, type "chicken feed" with quotations. Only sites with that precise phrase will show in the results.

3. Use the Include command: "+". "Pirates of the Caribbean" will bring up history, movies, books, amusement park rides and more. "Pirates of the Caribbean" +Blackbeard narrows the search considerably by only producing sites which have both terms.

4. Use the Exclude command: "-". The Exclude command works in the same fashion. Inputting "chicken recipe" -soup will return chicken recipes without the word "soup" in them.

5. Combine commands to narrow the search even further.

6. Multiply your efforts with a Meta search engine. These powerful tools combine the results of several search engines at once. See the Resources section for more information.

Tips & Warnings

• When searching with + or - commands, there should be a space before the command, but not after. It must be attached to the word.

Resources

• Get a free Google search bar.
• Use multiple search engines at once.
• Utilize Google, MSN and Yahoo all in one search.