Advanced Internet Searching – how to search the internet quicker and more effectively
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Web Search Engines
A web search engine is a web based service that searches for information on the web. It searches documents for key words and phrases that it has been asked to look for. When a person enters their query or key words the search engine searches through its index and displays all the results that may be matched with that query.
For example if you were looking for information on green tree frogs you would type “Green tree Frogs” into your search engine. The search engine will then display links to all the pages with information on Green Tree Frogs with ones most likely to match your search listed at the top.
There are a number of search engines you can use such as;
Multiple or meta search tools
A multiple or meta search tool is a tool that searches the internet using several search engines at the same time. You use them in the same way as a search engine by typing your request into the search box. The only difference is that instead of the search engine searching its records, the meta tool uses multiple search engines and their records and displays all the results giving you a fast and comprehensive way to cast a wide internet search.
Examples of meta search tools include:
There are also search engines that are specific to a particular field of study or work such as medical and legal search engines.
Conducting a search and refining your results
Here are some tips which will save you time and give you better results.
- To conduct a search you type key words into the Search Box.
Let’s say you want to buy books in Adelaide.
- Use more precise words—Instead of just typing ‘books’, try ‘bookshops Adelaide’.
- Use quotation marks to search for a specific phrase
If you are looking for an exact phrase you may not get good results by typing only the phrase into your search engine. A good tool for exact phrases is quotation marks. If you want to search for an exact phrase such as Pulitzer Prize winner you can enclose it in quotation marks and the search engine will only bring up pages that have that exact phrase in the exact order in which you typed it. That way you will not get hundreds of listing on Pulitzer Prizes or the nominees, you will only get Pulitzer Prize winners.
- Don’t use too many words—avoid typing in full questions, as every word will be searched for. Just use the key words.
If you are looking for a smaller or less known item such as a small bookshop it can be helpful to weed out the larger businesses. This can be done using a minus – sign in your search. Put a minus sign in front of terms you don’t want to search for. If you want to leave out shops owned by the Lola Bookshop Company, you could put ‘-Lola’ in your search terms so it reads “bookshops –Lola”.
If you’re only looking for pictures, click on the ‘Images’ link at the top or left of the search engine page and type your topic into the search field.
Remember that images you find on the Internet are usually copyright, meaning you can't use them in your own work unless you seek permission from the copyright holder.There are a number of websites where you can buy access to stock photography images such as www.bigstockphoto.com. You are able to use the stock photos in your own work.
Assessing a search—be careful what you read
- With so much information available, it’s important to think about search results and the quality of the information in them.
- Let’s say you want to find out about treatments for back pain and you search for ‘medicine back pain’. The results may contain articles by doctors, advertisements from pharmacology companies, personal opinions by sufferers and wild claims about untested miracle cures. How can you tell which information is useful to you?
An excellent approach is to think about:
- Currency—is the information up to date?
- Reliability—is the information mostly opinion? Is it balanced? Are there references and sources for any claims made?
- Authority—who wrote the information? What are their credentials? Are they reputable? Are there advertisements on the website?
- Purpose/point of view—is the information intended as opinion, fact or advertising?
Search tools and advanced search features
There are tools available to assist with more detailed and specific searches and some of these are identified below:
What is a Boolean Search?
- Boolean searches allow you to combine words and phrases using the words AND, OR, NOT and NEAR (known as Operators) to limit, widen, or define your search. Most Internet search engines default to a Boolean AND search, but its handy for you to know how to do a basic Boolean search.
- Boolean logic is just the term used to describe certain logical operations that are used to combine search terms in many search engine databases and directories on the Net.
Basic Boolean Search Operator - AND
Using AND narrows a search by combining terms; it will retrieve documents that use both the search terms that you specify, as in this example:
Adelaide AND South Australia
Basic Boolean Search Operator - OR
Using OR broadens a search to include results that contain either of the words you type in. OR is a good tool to use when there are several common spellings or synonyms of a word, as in this example:
computer OR pc
Basic Boolean Search Operator - NOT
- Using NOT will narrow a search by excluding certain search terms. NOT retrieves documents that contain one, but not the other, of the search terms you enter, as in this example:
Adelaide NOT travel.
Keep in mind that not all search engines and directories support Boolean terms. However, most do, and you can easily find out if the one you want to use supports this technique by consulting the FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) on a search engine or directory's home page.
Further Search Operators include:
- NEAR means you want all the words in that specific order or the actual phrase.
- NAND means a combination of NOT and AND
- NOR means a combination of NOT and OR
Conduct a search with domain names to refine the search:
If you know the website you are looking for is specific type of website, for example a website for a government agency or a school can be identified by the last part of its web address.
- .com = a commercial business
- .edu = an educational institution
- .gov = a governmental institution
- .org = a non-profit organization
- .biz = a business
Example: to search for a South Australian Government website you would type “South Australia site:.sa.gov.au” into your search engine.
You can also select to search for websites from a specific country.
- .au = Australia
- .fr = France
- .co.uk = England
Example: for Holiday websites from Australia you would type “holidays site:.au” into your search engine.