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Web Searching ABCs

Searching the web is largely a matter of personal style. There is no right or wrong way. Most people develop a series of steps they become comfortable with using again and again. We have compiled some basic search techniques to get you past some of the frustration you may be experiencing. Nothing set in stone. Nothing elaborate or difficult to use. Just some basic techniques and some background information meant to make your searches easier. If there are other methods you want to share with our user community, please let us know and we will be pleased to publish them. 

Using Favorites
I like to use the Favorites capabilities of my browser to organize the web sites I visit often. I even have a Favorites folder named “Search” that contains the sites I use for searching. I’ve moved it close to the top of my Favorites list. If you are not familiar with Favorites continue reading here; otherwise skip to the next paragraph. Let’s say you like to use Yahoo for searching. In your browser navigate to http://www.yahoo.com by either clicking on the hyperlink or typing the web address into the address box of your browser. Once you are at the site, from the Favorites menu of your browser, select “Add to Favorites …” The title of the web page you are adding will be suggested as the name under which the favorite will be listed. Most times the suggested name will be clear and helpful. Other times you will find that you want to modify the name to be more specific You can organize your favorites and place them in folders with names that describe a group of web sites. When you are adding as a favorite you can place it in a folder you have already set up or you can click the New Folder button to create a new folder into which you will add similar sites. Don’t worry too much about your selection of names and folders. Favorites can be renamed and moved around. Try creating a folder called something like “Search” or “Search Tools” and put your favorite search sites into that folder.

Your Home Page
Many people set their Home Page to a site that has search capabilities. I use http://www.excite.com. One of the things I like about Excite, which is also true of most other portal sites, is that you can organize your home page to show the links that are important to you and not show the ones you aren’t particularly interested in. I have stock prices, news and the weather instantly available. I have removed sports, my horoscope and other links that don’t require day-to-day review. If I am going to look up a phone number or business location I usually start from my home page. For home page selections I have previously used http://www.yahoo.com and the web page of my ISP. If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer you can set the home page of your choice from the Tools menu, Internet Options selection. If you have navigated to the site you want to use as your home page you can set it by clicking “Use Current” or you can enter the URL of the site you want to use.

Search for a Person’s Phone Number
I use the White Pages from my Excite home. I also have a favorite set up for http://www.anywho.com. They have White Pages, Yellow Pages and even Reverse Lookup. If you know the phone number, you can find out whose number it is.

Search for a Business
When I want to find a business I use the Excite Yellow Pages. Sometimes I know the name of the business and indicate that I want to search by name. Other times I only know what I want to buy and search by type of business. Specifying a business type is not totally obvious. It’s hard to know whether to be very precise or general. I usually start precisely. I type in Flat Head Screws and find that’s not a valid category. Neither is Screws. So I generalize to Hardware. Nine hardware stores are listed in my home town and there are also six related categories suggested that I can look in.

Getting Directions
If I have used the Yellow Pages to find a business there is often an option for getting directions. When that option isn’t available I go to http://www.mapquest.com. It takes just a bit of practice to get the hang of using the ZOOM control to see more or less detail or using the directional controls to see adjacent map areas. You can also get driving directions. Even when I get directions I like to print out the map. Be careful because the directions are based on algorithms that can’t take into account traffic, lights and speed limits. New or reengineered streets can also be troublesome. I suggest you double check the directions with the place you are going. The worst problem I ever had relying on online directions was on a trip to a conference and a hotel in Pittsburg. The search by address didn’t indicate that there were two identical addresses, one on the east side and the other on the west side. I followed the directions and got to the wrong side of town a half hour away from my real destination. Even worse, I spent a long time trying to figure out why the large hotel I had reservations at couldn’t even be seen.

General Information – Topic Searches – Where to Start
I recently heard that 75% of searches are done using Google. “Googling” has even become a synonym for web searching. You can find Google at http://www.google.com. The second most popular search engine is Yahoo at http://www.yahoo.com. If you use Internet Explorer as your browser and click the Search icon you will find yourself at http://search.msn.com. There are however, many search sites. You may find that you like certain features or the layout of one versus another.

What Words to Enter
Being very specific is the best bet. I looked around the office to come up with a sample search and came up with the question ”Why are exit signs red?” I typed those exact words into Google. Google reported that it had found 342,000 sites in .21 seconds. I scrolled down the first page of results and actually found “... The red color of gallium arsenide LEDs is particularly appropriate for emergency lighting because of its good visibility in smoke.” But I think I lucked out.

Why Did I get 342,000 Pages Listed and In What Order Are They Listed?
In general the search engines ignore articles like “a” and “the” and search for the other words. The order of the results is generally based upon the number of matching words found and the order of the words as they are found on the sites. Each search engine has its own proprietary search algorithms and its own method for ordering results.

Too Many Pages Returned – Search Within Results?
If you don’t find what you wanted, you need to make a determination as to what the problem is. It may well be that you were not specific enough. Had I just typed in “Exit Signs” I would have gotten 1,200,000 sites found. When you haven’t been specific enough you can either go back and do another search changing the words you entered, or you can try searching within the results that were already returned. Searching within the results essentially lets you narrow your search. It starts with the sites that have already been found, and selects from those, sites which additionally match the new words you type in. If I search within my results for Exit Signs and specify the word Red, I am down to 339,000 sites.

Advanced Search
Most search engines provide an advanced search capability that lets you complete a form to more precisely specify how to match the words you enter. By default, search engines look for each of the words you enter. You may want to specify that some of the words are necessary – otherwise not to return the site. For example, if you want to know what circuses are performing in your town within the next year the name of your town is a necessary entry. Words for which there are many common synonyms, for example, big, large, immense, etc. are not good selection for mandatory words. The author of the site could use any one of them to mean the same thing. Advanced search may also let you specify which words must come together. This is especially important when looking up trademarked phrases. A Google lookup of Top Job returned 5,920,000 sites. Looking for the exact phrase Top Job returned only 90,700. Searching within the results for the word cleanser narrowed the search to 107 sites.

Advanced Search Using Simple Math
This information works for nearly all of the major search engines:

Using The + Symbol to Add 
Another way to make sure that a search engine finds pages that have all the words you enter is to use the + symbol. For example, imagine that you want to find pages that have references to both President Bush and Colin Powell on the same page. You could search this way:

+bush +powell

Only pages that contain both words would appear in your results. Here are some other examples:

+windows +XP +bugs

This search would find pages that have all three of the words on them, helpful if you want to narrow down a search to Windows XP bugs, rather than Windows XP in general.

+star +trek +insurrection

That would get you pages about Star Trek that also specifically mention "Insurrection," the title of a Star Trek film.

The + symbol is especially helpful when you do a search and then find yourself overwhelmed with information. Imagine that you wanted to reserve a camping space in California's Yosemite National Park. You might start out simply searching like this:

yosemite

Chances are, you'll probably get too many off-target results. Instead, try searching for all the words you know must appear on the type of page you're looking for:

+yosemite +camping +reservations

Using The - Symbol to Subtract
Sometimes, you want a search engine to find pages that have one word on them but not another word. The - symbol lets you do this.

For example, imagine you want information about President Clinton but don't want to be overwhelmed by pages relating to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. You could search this way:

clinton -lewinsky

That tells the search engine to find pages that mention "Clinton" and then to remove any of them that also mention "Lewinsky."

Similarly, perhaps you are looking for information specifically about Windows 98 but keep getting pages about Windows 2000 or Windows XP. You could eliminate them with a search like this:

windows -2000 -XP

Perhaps you are a fan of the original Star Trek series but instead keep finding pages about Voyager, Deep Space Nine or Star Trek: The Next Generation. Try a search like this:

star trek -voyager -deep -space -nine -next -generation

In general, the - symbol is helpful for focusing results when you get too many that are unrelated to your topic. Simply begin subtracting terms you know are not of interest, and you should get better results.

Using Quotation Marks To Multiply
Now that you know how to add and subtract terms, we can move on to multiplication. As in normal math, multiplying terms through a "phrase search" can be a much better way to get the answers you are looking for.

For example, remember above when we wanted pages about reserving a campsite in Yosemite? We entered all the terms like this:

+yosemite +camping +reservations

That brings back pages that have all those words on them, but there's no guarantee that the words may necessarily be near each other. You could get a page that mentions Yosemite in the opening paragraph but then later talks about getting camping reservations in the Grand Canyon. All the words you added together would appear on this page, but it still might not be what you are looking for.

Doing a phrase search avoids this problem. This is where you tell a search engine to give you pages where the terms appear in exactly the order you specify. You do this by putting quotation marks around the phrase:

"yosemite camping reservations"

Now, only pages that have all the words in the exact order shown will be listed. The answers should be much more on target than with simple addition.

Likewise, remember this addition example?

+windows +XP +bugs

As you can imagine, multiplying the terms together within a phrase search would work better, because that exact phrase probably appears on good pages dealing with Windows XP bugs. So try this:

"windows XP bugs"

Remember the search for information about the latest Star Trek movie? We could transform that into a phrase search like this:

"star trek insurrection"

But the movie's title actually has a colon after the word "trek," and many pages might also follow this format. Thus, a better phrase search might be:

"star trek: insurrection" 

Combining Symbols
Once you've mastered adding, subtracting and multiplying, you can combine symbols to easily create targeted searches.

For example, remember the search for information relating to Star Trek's original series? We searched this way:

star trek -voyager -deep -space -nine -next -generation

An even better search might use subtraction and multiplication:

"star trek" -voyager -"deep space nine" -"next generation"

Special Purpose Search Locations
As you become familiar with the internet and link from site to site, you will find that there are sites specially designed for special purpose searches.

Here are some sites we use for special purposes:

Telephone Lookups           http://www.anywho.com/

Telephone and Other        http://www.switchboard.com/

Computer Terminology      http://whatis.techtarget.com

Domain Name Lookup        http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois

DNS Information              http://dnsstuff.com

How Do Search Engines Work?
Search engines don’t go out to the internet to look for sites with the words you enter. What they do is constantly search the internet and add the information they find and index it so they can retrieve it quickly. Most search engines use both the words that appear on the web page and special entries in the web page called meta tags. These are words that are not displayed, but which are used by search engines to determine what the page is about. Besides constantly “crawling” the web, search engines usually accept online submission of web pages. When you submit the page, it will be properly indexed by the search engine for fast retrieval. For more detailed information see our article on Search Engine Submission.

Further Information
There are sites wholly devoted to search engine information. Try doing a search on “Search Engines”.