How to Use Phrase Searching to Search the Internet Effectively

As the internet continues to expand and more and more pages are added, effective searching requires new approaches and strategies. Remember that the more specific your search, the more likely you will find what you want. To find relevant information, you must use a variety of tools and techniques. Here's how to use phrase searching to search the internet effectively.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. If you want to search for words that must appear next to eachother, then phrase searching is your best choice. A phrase is entered using double quotation marks and only matches that contain those words next to eachother will appear, instead of bringing up web pages that contain the words your searching for anywhere in the page.

2. For example:
   
   If you were searching for baseball cards, enter the phrase "baseball cards" in double quotations. The result will contain web sites with the words "baseball cards" adjacent to eachother. Without the quotation marks, the search engine would find web pages that contain the words baseball and cards anywhere within each page.

3. If you are searching for more than one phrase, you can separate multiple phrases or proper names with a comma. To find Mickey Mantle baseball cards, you would enter "baseball cards," "Mickey Mantle."

4. It is always a good idea to capitalize proper nouns because some search engines distinguish between upper-and lowercase letters. On the other hand, if you capitalize a common noun such as Bread, you will get fewer returns that if you typed in bread.

[dcole]

on 5/8/2009 I've used the quotation marks but hadn't realized that capitalization might make a difference for search engines. These are great tips for searching the internet more effectively. 5*