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How To Use Search Engines
24 November 2006 (updated)
This article explains how to find what you are looking for online with the help of a Search Engine web site such as Google or Yahoo!.
Introduction
If you don't know the exact address of a particular web site, or you have a topic in mind but don't know what web sites exist about that topic, then you need to use a Search Engine.
A Search Engine is like a catalogue of web sites where you can type some words and the Engine will search and then present you with a list of web sites relevant to your search.
Popular Search Engines
There are many different search engines available, among the most popular are:
- Windows Live Search
- Lycos
- Yahoo!
- Ask
- Altavista
- Hotbot
- Looksmart
Example Search
This example will show how to use Windows Live Search to search for the web site homepage of popular online auction site eBay.
If you don't know the exact address of the eBay site, this is where a search engine comes in useful. Type in www.live.com into your browser address bar to go to the Windows Live Search web site.
Since you are looking for the eBay web site, type the word ebay into the search box. You don't need to type any capital letters when searching.
Press the Enter key on your keyboard and Live Search will look for web sites about your subject, then present you with a list of the results.
At the top of the results you will sometimes see Sponsored Links. These are links paid for by companies to ensure their web site is at the top when you search for certain words.
However, these are not always the most appropriate sites to match your search request. The proper results based on your search are the ones just below the sponsored links.
You should notice that the web site at the top of the list is www.ebay.com. If you now click the underlined title link of that result, you should find yourself at the eBay homepage.
If a search result you click is not what you are looking for, click the Back button of your browser to go back to the results page and try a different link, or a completely new search.
What Kinds Of Things Can I Search For?
In the search box you can type anything you like - words, names, places, dates; you can even type questions or problems, for example my mouse has stopped working.
Try to be as specific as you can if you have a particular problem, for example if you know your mouse is made by the company Logitech, typing my logitech mouse has stopped working will give you results that are more relevant to your particular problem, and hopefully on one of the web sites you should be able to find a solution.
Search engines will often ignore common words and phrases such as where or what is. So for example, typing where is the eiffel tower will have the same result as if you just typed eiffel tower.
Advanced Searches
In some search engines, near to the search box you will see other options to narrow your search to particular files such as Images.
Click this and when you type a search into the box, the search engine will look for picture files only. Click on Web to go back to searching for web pages.
Some search engines have a link to Options or Preferences to allow you to be more specific in your searches and select the type of results you want to receive.
The SafeSearch filtering option available on certain search engines is especially important as it enables you to filter out or to allow explicit text or images to appear in your results.
Using Operators
Most search engines allow you to use what are called Operators. These are query words that have special meaning to the search engine.
Most search engines allow you to use what are called Operators. These are are query words that have special meaning to the search engine, such as AND.
For example, typing in dog AND cat forces the search engine to find pages that contain both the words dog and cat.
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