Still Searching?

Many of us have this idea that searching for material on the Internet, is as simple as typing words into a search box. Wrong. There is a science behind searching and if you want to do it right, you should follow a process.

The Searching Process and Search Tools

Why is google so popular? It all starts with the search engine for me. One of the first steps in finding what it is that you're looking for, is to use a good search engine. All search engine providers don't have access to all web pages. Google is one of the few who has a search engine, that covers a large portion of the world wide web. This is exactly why I'm pro team google on this one. 10 powerful search engines.

Next, you want to pay attention to your search queries. It is unnecessary to query double words because the engine will only recognize a word, once. Whole sentences are not a good idea unless you're looking for something exact. If you're looking for something exact, you should quote your text or it will be treated as keywords, Ex:

Phrase: "How do I cook steak for my family?"
Keywords: Cook, Steak, Recipes, How to

If you were to query the phrase, without quotes,  your results will include unnecessary pages because words like do, I, for, and my are too vague. Notice the words in bold. These are the words that are driving the search query.

Advanced Searching

Don't be fooled by the word "Advanced" in advanced searching. An advanced search can be performed by a novice. Advanced searching is when Boolean tools are used. for more information on this, see Lydia's Web 2.0 tools. Lydia explains this piece pretty well.

See this YouTube video on getting more from searching:

Did you know this information before but didn't use it? Are you going to change your searching habits to get the results that you want?