This page is intended to provide tips to anyone who utilizes a search engine and hopefully creates more efficient searches. To search the internet or my website, simply chose your destination and use the Google search bar at the bottom of this page or return to the main page and use the Google search bar located there. Also, see my hotlist page for more links to search engines, metacrawlers, and directories.
Top 5 Search Tools
Top 10 Search Tips
Top 5 Search Tools:
1. Google.com
www.google.com
A very easy to use search engine which produces results quickly and
accurately. By clicking the "more" link, one can further their
searching by selecting specific topics from a directory.
2. Yahoo.com
www.yahoo.com
Probably google's biggest competitor, Yahoo offers various different search
techniques and provides numerous different categories. However,
Yahoo's site can be slightly cluttered and occasionally distracting.
3. Altavista.com
www.altavista.com
A lesser known search engine. I use this engine strictly to help me
find photos or video. I find it too be better than google's or yahoo's
image finder.
4. Dogpile.com
www.dogpile.com
sends a search to a customizable list of search engines, directories and
specialty search sites, then displays results from each search engine
individually.
5. Mamma.com
www.mamma.com
Founded in 1996, Mamma.com is one of the oldest meta search engines on the
web. Mamma searches against a variety of major crawlers, directories and
specialty search sites.
Top 10 Search Tips:
Search tips found at: (http://searchenginez.com/tutorial.html)
1. Be natural
Type in what you want to know, rather than a list of synonyms. Websites are
written in flowing language, and search engines are being taught to
understand the same.
2. Capitalize
In general always use lowercase. But when capitalization is necessary, use
AltaVista 3. Use rare words.
3. Use rare words
The more unusual or uncommon the keywords you use are, the more specific the
results will be. Taking a moment to think of a valid yet uncommon word is a
valuable technique.
4. Most important first word
Putting the word that is most important to your search in first, gets
slightly better results.
5. Exclude words
By using a "-".
6. Recognize stop words
Search engines ignore the most common words, in an effort to speed things
up. Several hundred of these are deemed to be "stop words". They vary from
engine to engine, but always contain words like "the" "of" "web" "a" "to"
"in" & "is."
Note: AltaVista and Google will find complete
phrases, including stop words, when the phrase is "within quotes". A phrase
without quotes will ignore the stop words
7. Reverse questions
Search engines look for pieces of text that match your query. Web
pages are more likely to contain answers than questions - so search for the
answer. Phrase your query how you would expect the answer to read - the
difference appears slight, but it makes a huge difference.
8. Solve dead links
Try shortening the URL to the next subheading. Keep doing so until you get
to the point that works. Then browse from there to see if you can track down
the file that you want.
9. Chose the right engine
Don't just use any old search engine - they are all very different
10. Use the features of search engines to your advantage
Use a search engines directory to narrow your search.