How to quickly and effectively search the web for information you want

Is there something you'd like to find on the Internet? I offer free web search coaching by email at coach@possibilitiescoaching.com. Contact me with a topic on which you’d like assistance. I will email you back possible search strategies with links I’ve found using the strategies. I will be publishing interesting Past Search Requests in this area as well.

You know you can find anything imaginable on the Internet, from that terrific chili cook-off recipe, to the blue book value of your used car, to world religion and philosophy and art articles, to research studies being done on the disease your sister has, to opinions on various consumer products, to expert opinions on everything from A to Z. The problem is…how do you quickly and effectively find this incredible wealth of information? Here is help.

There are several different concepts to consider. The first concept is where you will do your search. The second concept is how you will do your search. The third concept is how to optimize and improve your searching methods.

Where on the web will you search?

There are a number of great Internet directories and search engines. (See The Major Search Engines by SearchEngineWatch for a list). Don’t feel overwhelmed if you only are familiar with one or two. Even if you only spend a small amount of time searching the web, I encourage you to try the different search engines so you can experience their differing strengths for yourself.

That being said, I will direct you to my personal favorites. If you want to explore a topic that is not too unusual, then I would start with Yahoo. Yahoo is a relatively small directory that lists the web sites of highest quality. I find that it is the best place to start my searches. If you do not find all the answers you are after, you might try Alta Vista, which is an extremely large web-crawler that conveniently categorizes your hits into folders. Google is very highly rated as a search engine, and many who know the industry believe it is a good place to both start and end your search. I personally try it after Alta Vista. Depending on what I am after, I often try another search engine or two. You may wish to consult The Major Search Engines for the strengths and weakness of each. Unless you have found just what you are after, or, need to redo your search, don’t stop reading on page one! Plan to read at least the first few pages of your search listing. Even though the best matches are listed first, you may be surprised on how often you find just what you are looking for several pages into your results.

 The basics of constructing your search

Once you are there, how do you construct your search? Boil your search phrase down to the key words you wish to explore. Eliminate those that are not essential. Do you want to learn “how to quickly and effectively search the web for information you want?” You are better off saying “search web” or possibly “search web how to”. Note that unless the search engine has a “natural language” option, the words may need to be ordered by importance rather than grammar and syntax. The order of your search results may depend in part on the order in which you place your terms. Thus, if I wanted to learn about stress management for teens, I might say, “stress teens management” so that general “management” sites would fall at the bottom of the list, and the sites I would see first would most likely have the words “stress” and “teen” in it. I would also be more likely to see general sites about stress that do not include teen material before being shown than general sites about teens that do not contain stress material. Obviously you should drop prepositions and articles (“the”, “a”, “on”, “in”, and so on). If your site does have a natural language option, remember that a computer does not do fuzzy logic (and language) well. It is more effective for you to figure out how to phrase it, than for you to rely on a computer’s natural weakness. But it is certainly better than nothing if you are just starting out!

Additional searching tips

Here are some other items to keep in mind. You are often better off if you place specific phrases within quotation marks. Additionally, some sites offer you powerful options in phrasing your search request. You will find these options in searchable sites as well as search engines. The best advice I can give you is to take advantage of their help pages! Other than that, keep in mind that Boolean operators are powerful for laser-sharp searches. Boolean operators are AND, OR, NOT, NEAR coupled with parentheses. (Sometimes plus signs and minus signs will take the place of “and” and “not”). NEAR generally means that one word should occur within five words of the other. These operators are sometimes, but not always, case sensitive, so you will be safe to keep them in all capital letters. If I wanted to explore “stress management for teens” I might say “(stress NEAR management) AND teens”. If I wanted to explore stress management for both teens and working women, I might say “(stress NEAR management) AND (teens OR (working NEAR women))”. Note that I am using the parentheses to keep the concepts completely clear and separate so that I do not confuse the search engine with what I am really after. (To translate: I want the phrases “stress management” or “management of stress” or something similar along with the phrase “teens”, or, along with the phrase “working women”, “women who work” or something similar. I would use the operator NOT to exclude articles in which I am truly not interested. If there was a beverage, or musical group, or something else that turned up by the dozen in a specific search, I might seek to specifically exclude them by the use of the operator NOT. It does need to be used judicially because you are asking the search engine to exclude articles that contain that word or phrase at all. You will also want to become comfortable with wildcards. These are characters that stand in for other characters. You could say manag* and pull up managing, management, manager, and so on. Obviously, this is quite useful in a search. To expand on my search example, I might say ‘stress near manag* and teen* and not “stress management singers”’

How to optimize and improve your searching methods

 As mentioned previously, if you’ve got good hits, and if you care about the material, then plan to page through several pages or more of listings. It is common to browse the first page, not find the information, and give up. Secondly, if your search item is in the least different or obscure, plan to construct your search phrase several different ways. Persistence is key here, as it is in many other pursuits. Keep trying, and don’t blame your lack of immediate success on yourself. If your first phrase did not turn up good hits, then think of synonyms. Think of completely different ways to word it. Try everything you can think of, and try it on different engines. Also note that the site you are after may not be listed directly in your search engines; it may be a hot link on a page that turned up in the search engines. I always plan to click through in the sites in my listings to get to “buried treasure”. I often find my best material there.  And as mentioned, experiment over time with the different search tools so you can acquire a familiarity with when they work for you and when they do not. 

 Be mindful of your searching techniques, and make mental note of what is working for you and what is not. Be persistent, and reasonably confident, and you will find your searching becoming quicker and more effective with each crack at the World Wide Web. Who do you want to be? Where tt there.

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