How Do I Search The Web?

The Web is full of great information - if you can find it. Programs called Search Engines were created to help categorize, sort through, and report information to you, so that you can find what you are looking for fairly easily.

Types Of Search Engines

There are many search engines on the Web for you to use. Some good ones are Google, http://www.google.com; Yahoo, http://www.yahoo.com; Ask Jeeves, http://www.ask.com/index.asp; and Dog Pile, http://www.dogpile.com/index.gsp.

Using A Search Engine

Somewhere on the front page of the search engine site, usually at the top, you will see a box in which you can type key words associated with the topic for which you are searching. The search engine will look through all of the information that it has categorized and report back to you with a list of its best guesses at what you want. It is best to use more than 1 search engine when you do research, since each engine can turn up different results.

Refining Your Searches

To help you refine your searches, you can use plusses, minuses, and quotation marks ( +, -, " ") in the search box. Plusses tell the search engine that you MUST have that word. Minuses tell it to be sure to NOT include a word. Placing a phrase inside of quotation marks tells the search engine to look for EXACTLY that combination of words. For example, if you wanted to search for python snakes, but did not want information about Monty Python, the comedian, to show up, you could type python -monty +snake in the search box.