Finding things on the Internet

It takes experience to consistently get useful results from searches. The more you search, the better your results will be, and the easier it gets.

Learn about search

  1. See "Executive Summary: The Two-Minute Bottom Line" and much more about search at BrightPlanetTM.
  2. "Yahoo Search Basics" actually covers everything from the basics to advanced search. It provides well-organized, broad coverage of how to search, and is helpful at many levels. Google's Help Center is similar.
  3. If you're having trouble finding what you want, or you want to be more productive when you search, you'll get some good pointers from this Internet Researcher.

One of the things you'll learn about "search" engines is that they don't actually search the Web. They search their own database, which is built up over time using a Web crawler or spider -- sound backward to you? What's a crawler? Try searching for web crawler and see what you find.

Which search engine is best?

That's now easy to answer. Try a few, and see which ones you like best.

Google is the 800 pound gorilla of the search business. It is good at producing relevant results.

Yahoo! and MSN Search and are the main contenders. They, and many other search sites have emulated Google's lean, clean look. They often produce results that are more relevant than Google's.

Ask.com is nice because you can enter your search terms in the form of a question. Try "How high is the Eiffle Tower?" (without the caps or quotes) or something else that you've always been curious about.) You can do the same at ixquick -- look for their "Natural Language" feature.

AlltheWeb offers a variety of specialized search tools and advanced search features.

Metasearch engines

As the name implies, Metasearch engines query several major search engines. Then they combine and rank the results following some algorithm.

Previewseek, or just Seek, is a stunning new metasearch engine from England. Ordinary search engines often give you so many results that it's tough to find the relevant ones. Previewseek overcomes this curse by sorting the results into categories. You simply pick the relevant category, and you're instantly mining much richer ore. Tip: Sometimes you need to click "Show More" under the list of categories to get the one you want.

Dogpile has been around since the beginning of metasearch, and it has continued to evolve. They combine results from Google, MSN, Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves and others. Don't overlook the View Demo link (tiny text). By clicking the Google, Yahoo!, etc., links you can see side-by-side comparison of what each engine finds. Naturally, the composite that Dogpile creates is much more comprehensive.

I searched for "I'm your huckleberry" using Dogpile, looking for some history of the expression. One category that AllinOne listed was Doc Holliday, which gave me exactly what I was looking for.

AllinOne MetaSearch is another search engine that uses categories to do the work of refining your search for you. I'm not sure which one, Seek or AllinOne is most effective. Advice? If you don't get what you want from one, try the other.

Search tips

Explore search sites thoroughly. They all do much more than what the opening page shows. Be sure to look at "Advanced Search" at the site. You'll be surprised at what you can do at a search site these days.

All of these search engines can give good results. It's well worth your while to try more than one if you don't get the results you want right away though.

Some spiders don't revisit sites for a long time. The linked page, or even the site itself may go away before the spider gets back to check. That's why you often find dead links in search results.

Special purpose search engines

Browse for information

Many people find that an Internet directory is an easier way to find things on the Web. Directories are created by humans rather than Web "spiders", which just blindly index the words on the Web. Search engines are powerful, but people see relevance and connection much better. The directories at dmoz.org,  Yahoo! and Google are among the best.

Search tips

  1. Try to use unique search terms that you're sure would be on a Web page you're looking for. Example: I used [kitchen master compactor bag] (without the brackets) and got exactly what I was looking for. It's what was printed on the side of one of the bags.
  2. If you think a specific phrase appears on pages related to your topic, use " ". For example, enter "Lance Armstrong".
  3. Use "define: search term(s)" at Google to get the definition of a word or phrase. For example, [define: infield fly rule], Do you know the reason for the infield fly rule?
  4. Save your successful searches as "favorites" (bookmarks) in your browser if you'll be coming back to them again.
  5. Google keeps a "cached" version of pages which you can retrieve in case the page you wanted is no longer available at the website.
  6. Find some powerful search tips at the University of South Carolina.

More on the Web

  1. Beyond Google -- Everything you ever wanted to know about  searching. You'll probably want to click the "Printer Friendly Version" link at the bottom of the article.
  2. Phil Bradley's website has an easy to use list showing which search engines are best for each purpose.
  3. Directory.net's "Searching" page has links to extensive information on most aspects of searching the Internet, including reviews, .
  4. The New York Times has a splendid guide to finding all sorts of information on the Internet.
  5. From the University of California: "Recommended Search Strategy: Analyze your topic & Search with peripheral vision"

Note: Research for this page was done with the help of search "plug-ins" for Firefox. They're available for Firefox at Mycroft.org.