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How to Use the Web Search

Most people are pretty familiar with doing Web/Internet searches on Google, Yahoo, etc. You simply type one or more search terms (the word(s) or phrase(s) that best describe the information you want to find) into the search box and hit the Enter key or click on the search button. In response, the search engine produces a results page, a list of Web sites related to your search terms, with the most relevant page appearing first, and so on.

Choosing the right search terms is the key to finding the information you need, no matter what search engine you choose to use. Start with the obvious, but remember it is often advisable to use multiple search terms. If you are interested in a vacation in Alaska, you should use vacation Alaska. If you can add anything to that, like cruise, that may produce even better results. Are your search terms sufficiently specific? To restrict a search further, just include more terms like vacation Alaska cruise summer.

Most searches are not case-sensitive. By default, most search engines return pages that include all of your search terms. However, most search engines ignore common words like and, the, how, where, and characters such as certain single digits and single letters - because if the search engine searches on these, it would slow down the results considerably without improving the results. Some search engines, like Google, will indicate if a common word(s) has been excluded. If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include the common word by putting a "+" sign in front of it. If a common word is an important part of a phrase, just put the phrase inside quotation marks. Phrase searches are particularly effective if you are searching for proper names, a line of lyrics, or famous phrases or quotations.

Do keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results.

Many search engines now use stemming technology, which means they will search not only for your search terms but also for words that are similar to some or all of the terms. If the user enters "viewer" as the query, the search engine reduces the word to its root ("view") and returns all documents containing the root -- view, viewer, viewing, preview, review, etc.

If your search term(s) has more than one meaning (like fluke which can be a fish or a stroke of luck), you can focus your search by putting a minus sign "-" in front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid, like "fluke -fish".

For term papers and business research, you will likely have an outline or plan to start with and the words and phrases in that will be your starting point. If you are looking at buying a house, you might do a search like "Mystic Connecticut MLS listings." If you were shopping, you might enter "yellow toaster" or "fast-drying hairspray." When looking for help, you might type in "Microsoft Publisher help" and for FAQs, you could inquire "Why is the sky blue?"