Using Search Engines

You can locate useful or interesting web sites by using a search engine. This is an organization with a web site containing a huge database of web site addresses. You key in a subject or a name that describes what you are seeking, and the search engine provides you with a list or selection of web site addresses that fit your inquiry. You then simply click on an address to jump to that web site.

Although search engine is really a general class of programs, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Alta Vista and Excite that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web and USENET newsgroups.

Preliminary Searching Hints

1. Choose a search engine, directory or library in accordance with the kind of search you are doing and the kind of results you are seeking.

2. Consider: Are you looking for a Web site? Information that might be contained within Usenet? Academic articles that may only be retrievable with gopher?

3. Determine your aims: Do you want a specific hard-to-find document on an esoteric subject, or general information on a broader topic? Do you need to search the entire Web, or is what you are seeking likely to be found on a number of sites, or only the most popular sites?

4. In making your choice, determine whether the information you are looking for is likely to be in a page's title or first paragraph, or buried deeper within the document or site.

5. Use a search engine's advanced features, if available, and read the help files if you are unclear about its searching procedure.

1. Enter synonyms, alternate spellings and alternate forms (e.g. dance, dancing, dances) for your search terms.

2. Enter all the singular or unique terms that are likely to be included in the document or site you are seeking.

3. Avoid using very common terms (e.g. Internet, people), which may lead to a massive amount of irrelevant search results.

4. Determine how your search engine uses capitals and plurals, and enter capitalized or plural forms of your search words if appropriate.

5. Use a phrase or proper name if possible to narrow your search and therefore retrieve more relevant results (unless you want a large number of results)

6. Use multiple operators (e.g. AND, NOT) if a search engine allows you to do so.

7. If you receive too many results, refine and improve your search. (After browsing the results, you may become aware of how to use NOT - e.g. Boston AND hockey AND NOT Bruins)

8. Pay attention to proper spacing and punctuation in your search syntax (i.e. no space when using + means +term not + term)

Which Search Engine Or Directory Do You Want?

To browse a subject area…
USE Yahoo, Magellan (or for top sites, NetGuide Live or Lycos Pointcom Top 5%)

To search Usenet…
USE Yahoo, Magellan, WebCrawler, AltaVista, InfoSeek or HotBot (or best of all, DejaNews)

To include older gopher files in your search…
USE Magellan, WebCrawler or InfoSeek

To search as much of the Web as possible…
USE AltaVista or InfoSeek

To search every word on a site or in a document…
USE AltaVista, InfoSeek or HotBot

To locate an obscure or hard-to-find document…
USE AltaVista, InfoSeek UltraSeek

To locate a fairly popular site or easy-to-find document…
USE WebCrawler, Yahoo, or Magellan

To retrieve a large number of results…
USE AltaVista or InfoSeek or a metasearch engine such as Savvy Search or Metacrawler

To retrieve few but relevant results…
USE WebCrawler or Infoseek (for relevance)

To search only titles, urls or keywords…
USE WebCrawler, Yahoo OR Alta Vista

To specify in what part of a site your search terms will occur (including titles, URLs and summaries)…
USE AltaVista (adv) or InfoSeek

To search reviewed and evaluated sites…
USE Magellan or Lycos Pointcom's Top 5% or NetGuide Live's Best of the Web

Some Advanced Search Techniques...

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