Search 101: How to Find What You're
Looking for on the Internet
Part 3

by Robin Nobles

(Continued from Parts 1 and 2)

My best recommendation to you is to choose one or two of the
major engines, get familiar with them, and use those as your
engines of choice.

We've discussed the different major engines, but what about some
tips on searching itself?

When searching at virtually any of the major search engines, if
you'll put quotation marks around your search term, you'll get
more relevant and focused results. With some engines, it doesn't
matter, because they automatically search for the phrase. With
other engines, it matters a great deal.

Let's look at our example, "English bulldogs." At Google, a
search for English bulldogs (no quotation marks) gives us 24,500
results. A search for "English bulldogs" (with quotes) gives us
2,930. Why the difference? At certain engines like Google, when
you don't use quotation marks, you're telling the engine to
search for each individual word as well as the phrase itself. So,
to get the engine to search JUST for the phrase, thereby giving
you more relevant results, put the phrase in quotation marks.

Another tip for searching: read the search tips and visit the
advanced search page for the engines of your choice. On the
advanced search page, you can tell the engine that you want it to
look for a particular word or phrase, and at the same time, to
ignore a particular word or phrase. For example, at Google's
Advanced Search page, we could tell the engine to search for
"bulldogs" but to ignore any pages that contain the word
"football." This is simply another way to finetune your search
results.

Besides the major engines, you may have a lot of success with
highly obscure terms if you can find a "vertical" search engine
or directory for that particular area. For example, let's say
that you're searching for an obscure legal term, and the major
engines don't offer what you're looking for. FindLaw
(http://www.findlaw.com/) is a vertical search engine for the
legal industry, meaning that it only offers results in that one
area, versus the "horizontal" engines that span an endless number
of areas.

How can you find vertical engines or directories? Beaucoup
(http://www.beaucoup.com/) lists well over 2,500 search engines
for focused areas and industries.

Finally, another way to find information on the Internet is
through Usenet newsgroups. Usenet newsgroups feature thousands of
"bulletin boards" where members discuss certain topics. Why would
you want to bother with newsgroups? Let's say that your English
bulldog is a finicky eater, and you'd like to visit with other
bulldog owners to learn how they solved the problem. At the
newsgroups, you can get support and enter into discussions on
virtually any topic imaginable, including our finicky bulldog.
Google Groups (http://groups.google.com) make it easy to search
for newsgroup posts, and you can also post messages of your own.


This article was written by Robin Nobles, a professional
freelance writer and the Director of Training at the Academy of
Web Specialists (http://www.academywebspecialists.com). Over the
past few years, she has trained several thousand people in her online
and onsite courses in search engine positioning strategies and
has written three books that can be ordered through Amazon. Visit
the Academy's training Web site to learn more about their online
courses: http://www.onlinewebtraining.com.