Power Search The Web With More Control
Do you sometimes wish that you could search the Web more efficiently to get results that are more focused?
By E. Shaul
There are billions of websites and webpages along the information highway called the World Wide Web. And, millions of pages are being added every day leading to what some people call “World Wide Anarchy”.
Fortunately, several companies and thousands of people are cataloging the Web for us making this information available through search engines. The problem isn’t finding too little information but rather finding too much! It’s a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack when your initial search turns up forty thousand or forty million “hits”.
Search engines use automated “bots” to cruise the web and build databases of relevant websites. Each website is categorized with keyword indexes which these search engine “spider bots” analyze and submit to you as “hits”. Keywords can be any word on a webpage or in a search. And, the more specific your keywords the more relevant your hits will be. Interestingly, most internet searchers use only two keywords per search. The recommended maximum is six, carefully chosen words. For example, using “integrated portable hand-held computers” is a better phrase to use than “PDAs”.
Some search engines offer features that allow more control over what you are looking for when using the simple text search box. For example, Google allows you to search documents in various file formats. So, if you want to search Microsoft PowerPoint documents, simply enter [filetype:ppt key words] and you will get results that are PowerPoint documents. NOTE: [ ] is not part of the search statement.
If you’re looking for information that involves a phrase or more than one word, try putting your search keywords into quotation marks. For example, if you’re researching accounting software, you’ll get better results if you use “business accounting software”. Again, the point is to narrow your search keywords into a very specific request.
With the Google search engine, you can use number ranges to specify your search by inserting two periods between two numbers. For instance, if you want information on the Beatles between 1960 and 1970, simply enter [1960..1970 Beatles] and you will get about 4.5 million results that have to do with the Beatles for that period! Most Web search tools, including meta-search engines and directories, offer an “Advanced Search” option.
“Advanced Search” gives you the power to refine your search by allowing you to specify search conditions. In other words, “Advanced Search” lets you fine tune your search to get a little closer to your needle in the virtual haystack.
Google’s Advanced Search page at http://www.google.ca/advanced_search, for example, provides a variety of search options including, “with all of the words,” “with the exact phrase,” “with at least one of the words,” and “without the words.” It also gives you options including Language, File Format, Date (specifies what time period), Occurrences (choose where the terms occur - e.g. titles, text), Domain (allows searching within a specific website – convenient when there is no search tool provided), and other features.
Google and Yahoo are still the most frequently used search engines followed by MSN. Here are a couple of others to add to your arsenal of information searching: www.altavista.com • www.dogpile.com • www.pandia.com • www.ask.com
My mantra “use more than one search engine/directory” applies to “advanced search” tools as well. It’s important to realize that search engines do not all cover the same parts of the Internet Universe, which gives you every reason to use more than one.
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