WebSleuth

Searching the Internet

There are billions of web pages available on the Internet today! Searching these pages is made more difficult because each of the search tools do different things. Here is some brief information to get you started

What is Web Searching?

When you are doing a web search you are:

A) Using a search engine to search the words in the text of the page. You are searching for words in the entire web site.

B) Using a directory which has put web pages into subject categories...much like books are arranged in libraries! You are searching the assigned subjects.

C) Using both directory search and a full text search at the same time. Most search engines fit into this category.

D) Searching using many search engines all at once. We'll call them multi-engine search tools

Search Engines

Here are a few of the most popular search tools

Tips

When using any of these search tools there are several general guidelines that will increase your ability to get good results. These two hints will work on any of the search engines.

Quotations - best when searching for a phrase or a name.

Try these two searches in Altavista

will smith

"will smith"

 

Plus (+) or Minus (-) signs - Works like the and when doing boolean searching. (+) means that a word has to be included in the search. (-) means that a word has to taken out of the search.