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The Internet has become more then just a way of connecting people to a world-wide audience. Learn how you can best utilise a Search Engine to find information on favourite topics, hobbies or general interests.
| WHAT ARE SEARCH ENGINES? |
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A Search Engine is a tool that can help you find the web site that you are looking for on the Internet. You could look at it as a big telephone book for the Internet. Of course, if you are looking for a Wellington phone number in an Auckland phonebook, you would be very lucky if you got any results. (Remember this, when you get no results back from your Search Engine)
How do I get to a Search Engine?
Search Engines usually come in the form of a web page. Therefore, you can get to one by typing the name of the web site page into the address box on your Browser. They have cute names that make them easy to remember. You may have seen or heard of some of the more popular ones; Yahoo!, Google, Excite, MSN Search, Alta-Vista, Neoplanet.
All you have to type into your address box on your Browser, is the name followed by .com (American sites), or .co.nz (New Zealand sites), or .co.au (Australian sites). If you are completely new to the Internet, you have just had your first taste of Domain Names. They work like customised car licence plates. The owner chooses the name, and pays to secure it like copyright.
Yahoo.com is an example of an American Domain name.
Excite.co.au is an example of an Australian Domain name.
NZoom.co.nz is an example of a New Zealand Domain name.
If you type one of these Domain names into the address box on your browser, you will go to that Search Engine site. Domain names are URL's to the main section of a Web Site.
What does a Search Engine page look like?
All Search Engines vary in looks, but all have one important box and button that should always look the same. The Search Box, and the Search Button.
The Search Box is where you type the words that determine which pages you are searching for, and the Button is what you click on to request the search (after typing, you can hit Enter instead of the button). The Search Box is the only thing you need to concern yourself with when searching for a web site. Everything else on the Search Engine page is either advertisements, or other services they offer.
Most of the Search Engine sites are American, and so is the Microsoft Windows. This explains why a lot of the programs installed with Windows are more orientated toward American services. If you click on the Search button, using Microsoft Internet Explorer, you will search using Microsoft Network Search engines (MSN Search default) and the site will show in a separate section of your browser, so you can surf and search. This is not ideal if you are looking for an Australiian web site.
What does a Search Engine do?
Instead of telephone numbers listed in a telephone book. Search Engines list Web page address' (called URL's which stands for Universal Resource Locator's). You simply type in keywords that you think might produce what you want, and it should return you with some URL's that somehow relate to the word (or words) you typed.
The trick with Search Engines, is what to type into that little box. More about that here. The more specific you are, the less URL's you have to sort through to get to the page you want. Which in most cases is a good thing. You can be over specific however.
What do URL's look like?
URL's are identified on web pages in several ways. They are usually underlined, they are usually a different colour (commonly blue with Window's default settings) and your cursor will change to a hand when you hover over the URL text. Most of all, when you left click on them, they will take you to another page, or start a file transfer, or multimedia effect.
| WHAT SEARCH ENGINE TO USE |
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As mentioned before, it is no good looking for a Wellington phone number in an Auckland telephone Directory. The same applies to Search Engines. If you are looking for an Austrlaian web site, you are best using a Australian Search Engine. Many Search Engines provide links to other countries' versions of their Search Engine. This is something to keep in mind when you know where the web site actually originates from (American company, or English etc)
How do they work?
Search Engines use things called 'Spiders' to constantly search the Internet for new web pages that appear on a daily basis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To prevent giving you old links (pages that no longer exist on the Internet often give an error such as 'page not found') Search Engines also have to ensure the links they have stored are still 'active' or 'live'.
Also when using Search Engines, the results of your search can vary according to the dynamics of the word or words you have typed in to the Search box. The web sites detected as a result of your search can have wide variations depending on how the words which you have entered relate to those web sites.
It is suggested you try more than one Search Engine to search for the material required. It does not pay to always use the same one. There's other ways to get exactly what you are looking for here if you feel a little more advanced now.
| HOW TO USE A SEARCH ENGINE |
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To use a Search Engine, all you have to do, is type the address of the page into your browser. There are several addresses to popular Search Engines listed at the bottom page under Related Links.
Once at the site, you simply type in a word, or sentence, or several words that relate to the topic you wish to find, or web site you wish to get the address of. If you really want to pin down the page you are looking for, you may want to try some advanced commands embedded in your words. A list of a few of the advanced commands that are available on most Search Engines are discussed under Advanced Searches.
You may want to look for a web site on Cats. There are many, so typing "cats" into the Search box, could give you several thousand web sites that include the word "cats". This is where narrowing down your Search Results could save some time.
If you were looking for Persian Cats in particular, you should type into the Search Box, exactly that. Remember that every Search Engine will produce different results. So try more than one, to find the best page on the topic that interests you.
Once you have typed the word you wish to search for, hit the Enter button on your Keyboard, or simply click on the button next to the Search Box on the Search Engine web site. The Search Engine will bring back the results of your search in the form of URL's. URL's are text that links you to other web pages. If you click on one, you will go to another page, or start a video, or sound clip.
URL's are what you are searching for, because when you find one that best describes what you are looking for, clicking on it will take you to that page.
Search Engines usually list your Search results URL's in an order. This is usually the closest match to your search criteria showing at the top of the list. You will usually see the results in batches of 10 or 20 at a time. To get to the next batch, there will be a NEXT button, or several numbers at the bottom of the first batch. Click on NEXT to go to the next 10 or 20 results.
| ADVANCED SEARCHES |
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In this section about Search Engines, we discuss how to improve your search results by using additional commands embedded in your words. These additional commands vary with different Search Engines. Some Search Engines may not support these commands.
Search Engine Math Commands:
Include
When you use the 'Include' command, you tell the search engine to look for web pages that include the word that follows the command. The positive symbol (+) is used to represent the word 'Include', and there should be no space between the + and the word to follow.
e.g +persian will indicate a page which must include the word 'persian'.
You may say what is the difference between +persian, and just persian as a search word? Well, nothing really, except when you use it with other words.
e.g. cats+persian (as opposed to rugs+persian)
You can also make more than one Inclusion to your search words:
e.g. cats+persian+males
Exclude
When you use the 'Exclude' command, you tell the Search Engine to look for web pages that exclude the word that follows the command. The negative symbol (-) is used to represent the word 'Exclude', and once again, there should be no space between the - and the word to follow:
e.g. -rugs will indicate a page which must not include the word 'rugs'.
This command is primarily used to omit articles that you do not want in your search results. You may use it in a similar way to the example below, where you are only interested in Persian cats.
e.g. persian-rugs (as opposed to persian)
You again can exclude more than just one word, or combine with inclusion commands like this:
e.g. persian-rugs+cats+males-desexed
Phrase
When you use Phrases around your text (quote marks ""), you tell the Search Engine to look for web pages that include the entire phrase you have put in quote marks. Some search Engines do this automatically, so the quote marks are not necessary. You have to test this for yourself, by trying a search with and without the quote marks, to see if it gives a different result.
To search for a web page that includes the phrase "I am amazed" you would simply type this:
e.g. "I am amazed"
If you simply typed I am amazed without quote marks, the Search Engine will look for every site that has the keywords ' i ', ' am ', and ' amazed '. As you can imagine, this may add a lot of results that do not have the information you want.
| SEARCH ENGINE POWER COMMANDS |
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Again, not all Search Engines support these commands. You may want to experiment with various Search Engines to see if these provide different results to your search.
title:
If you start your search word with title:, followed by the words used in the title of the page, you will get web sites that have the same title. The title is usually what you see at the very top (title bar) of your web browser when you go to pages.
url:
If you start your search word with url:, followed by the main web site address (usually called a Domain e.g. Geocities.com), you should get a list of all of the pages that start with Geocities.com
link:
If you start your search word with link:, followed by the main web site address (usually called a Domain e.g. Geocities.com), you should get a list of all of the pages that link to Geocities.com
Wildcards
If you start your search word with *, followed by what you know is part of the full name of the subject you are looking for, you will place an unknown name at the beginning. Best described through example. If you are looking for a picture, and you know it ends with ' .jpg ', you can search for ' *.jpg ' to get every site that has a file that ends with ' .jpg '.
Boolean Commands
Boolean Commands are usually related to how chips in your computer decide which way to make decisions at an electronic level. They basically represent sentences such as 'If you say yes, and they say no, then I should do this...', or 'If you say yes, and they say yes, then I should do this...'. These commands are commonly called logical expressions.
OR
The OR Boolean Command basically means what it says. If you type it into your search request e.g. Cats OR dogs, you will get results with either 'Cats' or 'Dogs' in them.
AND
The AND Boolean Command basically means what it says also. If you type it into your search request e.g. Cats AND Dogs, you will get both in your results.
NOT
The NOT Boolean Command basically means do not include this word in the search criteria. It will not return web pages that contain the word that follows the NOT command.
e.g. cats OR fur NOT fluffy will give a result of all pages with relation to cats that are not fluffy, and furs that are not fluffy.
AND NOT
This is a way to use the NOT command on a particular word rather than the entire search.
e.g. cats OR fur AND NOT fluffy will give a result of all pages with relation to cats (furry ones also) and furs that are not fluffy.
Nesting
Nesting is to embed parts of your words in brackets.
| IMPORTANT NOTE TO SEARCH ENGINES |
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Search Engines can make use of modern technology, to remember things you have searched for in the past. Something to keep in mind when you let your kids on the computer if you have browsed to pages not ideal for their viewing.
By visiting a Search Engine page that you have used, and typing a letter into the Search box (without clicking on the search button, or hitting enter) and clicking on the down cursor button (down arrow on your keyboard next to the numeric keypad) they can see all of the words you searched for beginning with that letter of the alphabet. By hitting the down cursor button to the selection of their choice, they can then commence the same search as you did, with similar links to the same pages.
Search Engines can do this in several ways. One of the more common is the use of cookies. Cookies are small files that are downloaded when you go to some web sites. Like the file that you see when you visit any web site, it is usually downloaded into your 'Temporary Internet Files' folder. This can be found by double clicking on My Computer on your desktop, then double clicking on C:, then Windows. Sometimes cookies will sit in another folder in the same place, called cookies. By deleting the contents of these two folders, you can prevent someone from seeing what you have searched for. Some cookies you may want to keep, so caution is recommended when deleting all of the files in these two folders.
Another way to eliminate this problem is to visit each Search Engine you have used, and enter any letter of the alphabet, followed by the down arrow on your keyboard. This will show you everything you searched for with that Search Engine, that began with that letter of the alphabet. You will need to use the down arrow to highlight the ones you do not want seen, and hit the delete button.
| RELATED LINKS |
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- Alta-vista
- Excite.com
- Google.com
- XtraMSN Search
- Yahoo.com
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