Better Web Searching

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project using a search engine is second to e-mail use for online activity in the U.S. (http://www.pewinternet.org/trends/Daily_Activities_12.05.05.htm)

Is everyone using search engines effectively? How about you — do you get good results on the first page or do you start wading through thousands of results links? To refine your search strategy and get to the good sites quicker, follow these tips.

1. Create good search statements. Think about what you want to learn about and use words you expect to find in the body of the page. For example, the keyword strings search engine tutorial, web search tutorial, and web search tips return different results when entered in Google.
    
2. Know the default setting for the implied conjunction between keywords — is it AND or OR. Most search engines default to AND between keywords.
    
3. Be specific. Example: use Milwaukee Brewers instead of Brewers.
    
4. Use at least 3 keywords and put the most important keyword(s) first in the string. Example: search engine tutorial
    
5. Combine keywords, if appropriate, into a phrase by putting quote marks around the words. Example: “search engine tutorial”
    
6. Know how the search engine handles “stop words.” Stop words are small, common words (as, at, be, into, with, ...) that search engines DON’T stop for when searching texts and titles. Some search engines will even ignore these words inside phrases surrounded by quote marks. Google is one exception that will acknowledge stop words within phrases; for example, you can search for “to be or not to be.”
    
7. Use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words or phrases to force their inclusion or exclusion in the search. Example: “eating disorder” anorexia -bulimia
    
8. Include a Field search in your statement, if supported by the search engine. Example: inurl:AU “john williamson”

Also, go beyond Google. According to the authors of "The BEST Search Engines" at the UC Berkeley - Teaching Library, "Less than half the searchable Web is fully searchable in Google. Overlap studies show that about half of the pages in any search engine database exist only in that database. Getting a second opinion is therefore often worthwhile."

Three excellent sites to use to learn more about searching and to gather information on search engine features are:

Bare Bones 101, University of South Carolina Beaufort Library. Start here as this site provides 17 short and succinct lessons on searching, including tips on using the top search engines.

“The BEST Search Engines,” Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial, UC Berkeley - Teaching Library. This site provides more detailed explanations and has some excellent comparison information. I suggest you start at this page and follow links from there.

“Web Searching Tips,” Search Engine Watch, Danny Sullivan, Editor; Chris Sherman, Associate Editor.

Pam Peters
Education Coordinator
CIT Computing