Get the Internet search to work harder for you

Most of us now rely on the Internet to get more information or to research a topic, whether it related to work, study or recreation. In most cases, we don’t directly go to the website containing the information we want. Usually, a search engine is our first step out in the cyberspace. Since we use the search engines so frequently, we can be more effective searchers if we simply add power to the way we search. Let us discuss a few tips to get relevant information quickly using search engines.

Be specific

The more specific your search is, the more likely you will get what you want. So, if you are looking for a Chinese restaurant that serves Cantonese cuisine in Sydney, then enter exactly that as your command: chinese restaurant cantonese cuisine in sydney and not chinese restaurants. Simply typing the exact problem or the topic can give you great results.

The + symbol

You often do a search and are overwhelmed by the information thrown by the search engine. Use the + symbol to find web pages that have all the words you have entered and not just some of the words. So, if you enter hotel+reservations+port+macquarie, then pages that contain all four words will appear in results. Another benefit of using the + symbol would be that the search engine will not be confused by Macquarie Street and Macquarie University.

The – symbol

Sometimes you want the search engine to search for one word but not another word. For example, you might want to know about Governor Macquarie but the search engine gives you information about the street, the university and the bank named after him. You may block such irrelevant results out by specifying governor macquarie -street -university -port -lake –place -bank.

 Search on a phrase

Using the + symbol may not get you the best result because it is possible that although all the words appear in the web page, they are at different places and are not related to each other. For example, a page resulting from hotels+port+mcquarie may theoretically give details of hotels in Queensland (instead of Port Macquaqrie) and in the last paragraph mention the distance between Brisbane and Port Macaquarie. The search engine did its job by finding a page that contained both the words but not well enough for you. To avoid this problem, ask the search engine to look for the words in exactly the same order. Use the quotation marks around the phrase like this: “hotels in port macquarie”. The search engine would now look for pages that contain the phrase hotels in port macquarie exactly.

The * symbol

If you want the search engine to look for plural of the word you have entered, variations of the word you have entered or you are not sure of the spelling of the word you have entered, use the * symbol. For example, cent* will find both center and centre. If you specify, sing*, the search engine will look for all words that have sing as the base – singer, singers, singing and so on.

Site specific search

You can include or exclude a site that can participate in the search results. For example, you want to view movie reviews published in yahoo.com. If you enter movie+reviews, you would get results across all the sites though you want to read the review appearing on Yahoo!. Enter movie+reviews inurl:yahoo.com. Your search results will be limited to movie reviews on yahoo.com. This is the result of specifying inurl. Having a search toolbar on your browser can help you to do site specific search very easily. Just click on the site search feature and you will get results from the website that is open in the browser.

You can use the above symbols in combination. For example, you want to read the review of a movie ‘Burn after reading’ and you don’t want the search engine to be confused by music reviews of the movie and don’t want results from Yahoo since you have already read that review. You can combine the commands that you have learnt and enter movie+review “burn after reading” –“music review” -inurl:yahoo.com.

You can learn a number of techniques to search more effectively. For now, master the basic commands one by one initially and then in combination. You will find that as you start using them, the quality of your search improves and time reduces.

Most search engines offer an Advanced Search facility that can help you to add more power to your search. Meanwhile, new search services such as local search have been introduced recently. These would be discussed at a later stage after you have made a start with the basic commands above.