Software Tips & Tricks Internet Search Tips

By Laura Noble

When searching the Internet, be patient! Remember, you are looking for a single topic among millions of possibilities.

Search Engines

Search engines are the main method of finding what you need on the Internet. Though several engines may appear to be similar, the search results may differ from one engine to the next. It is often necessary to use more than one engine during a search.

Because each search engine works slightly different, read the About page on the site and review such pages as Search Tips, Advanced Search, and Help.

Defining the Search

Be Specific: If you're looking for Used Cars, do not define search simply as cars. If you know the brand of car you want then define your search as Used Volkswagen Cars.

Check Spelling: If you misspell a word in your criteria, the search will be inaccurate. Example: Used Volkswagen Cas.

Boolean Operators can be used to define a search in most search engines. These operators help in defining the search criteria further.

The criteria are not case-sensitive though it is convenient to capitalize operators to separate them from the keywords, etc.

Helpful Operators

• AND: Inserting the operator AND between two keywords or phrases will result in Web sites that include both keywords. Example: Used AND Cars tell the engine to search for pages with BOTH used and cars.
  
  
• A plus sign (+) works similar to AND. Example: Used + Cars with no space after the + sign.
  
  
• OR: Inserting the operator OR between two keywords or phrases will result in Web sites with either or both of the keywords. Example: Volkswagen OR Toyota will look for sites with either or both Volkswagen or Toyota.
  
  
• AND NOT: Inserting the operator AND NOT will exclude a word from the results. Example: Volkswagen AND NOT Beetle will search for sites that include Volkswagen but not Beetle.
  
  
• A minus sign (-) works similar to AND NOT. Example: Volkswagen – Beetle
  
  
• NEAR: This operator allows you to specify how many words separate terms specified. The default is 10. Example: Volkswagen NEAR Jetta or Volkswagen N4 Jetta would search for pages containing the words Volkswagen and Jetta within 4 words of each other.
  
  
• Quotation Marks (" "): Surrounding a phrase with quotation marks will result in a search for the exact phrase. Example: "Used Volkswagens"
  
  
• * - use to search for various forms of a word. Example: run* would result in pages containing running, runs, runners, etc.
  
  
• Combination of operators will also work. Example: “Used Cars” + Ontario will result in pages containing the phrase Used Cars plus Ontario. This narrows the search to include only Ontario versus worldwide.
  
  
• To use operators such as AND, OR in a keyword phrase and not be treated as an operator enclose in single quotes. Example: Lennon ‘and’ McCartney.
  

Stay tuned to Networking Today in the coming months for more Software Tips & Tricks from Noble Software Solutions.

Laura Noble is the owner of Noble Software Solutions. Laura can be contacted at 519-680-2689 or by e-mail at lnoble@noblesoftwaresolutions.com. www.NobleSoftwareSolutions.com

Published in Networking Today, February 2002.