Internet Tips

| The Basics | What to type on a search? | Search tips | | More search tips | Other |

The basic internet tips

Go up the hierarchy and see where you are. When your search is complete and you are lead to a webpage somewhere in the world it is not always clear where you have ended up. Back up to find out where you are. If you check out the address in the browser you may have several directories, one after the other separated by slashes.

The page you are reading is the lowest level of a series of directories beginning with the web site. To learn more about the context of the page you are on, delete part of the URL to the preceding slash (directory) and hit enter! You will go up the hierarchy. If you were searching for information on a book, for example, going back up the URL will show you information such as the name of the author, etc.

One important point to note is that if you save a page to disk, the URL will not be included with the saved data and will therefore be lost, so make sure you write it down somewhere. If you print directly from your browser, the URL will be printed for you in an upper or lower corner.

If you have forgotten to note down the URL, don't despair, as you could run another search to locate the Web address without too much effort. Look at the article you have saved and find the most unusual set of words together. Key these words into a popular search engine with quotation marks and the engine should come up trumps for you.

The search criteria

For many questions, you can find excellent information by going to Google and typing in four to six words related to your subject.

Search engines index the exact words found on Web pages, therefore you must be creative in anticipating the possibilities. There are several ways to type in a word search and knowing these differences can help you get better results.

Keyword Search is the broadest searching method available and is used by many search engines. This kind of search will find all pagesthat contain any of the words you have specified in any order and in any location. Most engines have a ranking system, whereby they are ranked by the number of previous hits to get them further up the list and by how close together the words appear in the text.

Phrase Search is more accurate than keyword searching and will bring up only those pages on the Web that appears exactly as you typed in the text. If you are getting too much spurious information from a keyword search, then try a phrase search by inserting the phrase you have typed in inverted commas; many search engines offer this basic function.

Boolean Operators uses AND, OR, NOT, and sometimes NEAR. Some engines have these operators available to expand or contract your search results. AND, NOT , and NEAR contract your results while the OR expands the search. Some pages allow you to specify the nearness of the words, such as not more than 15 or 50 words apart.

Tips on searching online

Use several search tools and engines. Different search engines operate and index in different ways so the results for one may not be the same for another. There isn't any one search engine that has the entire Web indexed so try several engines and directories. For more thorough searching don't forget to use reference and targeted engines.

Always take a minute to read the search tips on each search engine, which will show you the intricacies of the particular engine and help you to use the site more efficiently to maximise your efforts and achieve better results. Certain tips may show you how to effectively narrow your search by using quotation marks, plus signs and minus signs to help keep or exclude certain words. AltaVista and Excite offer these options.

Keyword searches can be made more accurate by being mindful of what you are typing and using several keywords. Typing just one word will literally bring up thousands or even millions of pages. Again, using a phrase search may get you better results and even combining phrases on the same subject.

If you are still flummoxed you could always try and guess the address of the website you are looking and key it straight into your browser. A Web address is known as a URL (uniform resource locator) and often comes in the format of http://www.name.com, or ###.co.uk (UK), th (Thailand), au (Australia) and so on. The company name goes in between the www. and .com. Always use case letters, no capitals!

More tips to searching online

Go up the hierarchy and see where you are. When your search is complete and you are lead to a webpage somewhere in the world it is not always clear where you have ended up. Back up to find out where you are. If you check out the address in the browser you may have several directories, one after the other separated by slashes.

The page you are reading is the lowest level of a series of directories beginning with the web site. To learn more about the context of the page you are on, delete part of the URL to the preceding slash (directory) and hit enter! You will go up the hierarchy. If you were searching for information on a book, for example, going back up the URL will show you information such as the name of the author, etc.

One important point to note is that if you save a page to disk, the URL will not be included with the saved data and will therefore be lost, so make sure you write it down somewhere. If you print directly from your browser, the URL will be printed for you in an upper or lower corner.

If you have forgotten to note down the URL, don't despair, as you could run another search to locate the Web address without too much effort. Look at the article you have saved and find the most unusual set of words together. Key these words into a popular search engine with quotation marks and the engine should come up trumps for you.

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