Would you like to find exactly what you need without searching through billions of web pages? You need just a few basic techniques that will let you search smarter instead of harder.
First you must use a search engine. A search engine is a specialized website that helps you find what you need on the web. Google, Bing, and Yahoo are currently the most popular search engines. Search engines use “spiders” to “crawl” through web pages, index the information and add it to the search engine. Search engines search the Internet for you and give you a list of search results.
Just type in what you’re looking for in the search box . You must type in specific keywords to yield better results. The search engine will look for matching websites from all over the Web. Your results will contain your search terms.
You will need to look over your first page of search results. Try different search terms if you need to change your results.
Happy searching!
Tips For Improving Your Searches:
- Start simple and then refine your search by adding more search terms
- More specific, unique terms usually return better results
- Use quotation marks to search for exact phrases
- Don’t worry about punctuation
- Don’t worry about capitalization
- Set a time limit and change strategies if necessary
Boolean Basics:
- Narrowing your search results leads to more relevant results
- The AND (+) command returns only documents that contain all the keywords listed
- The OR (-) command returns documents that contain any of the keywords
- The NOT command returns documents that do not contain the keywords listed
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