|
| Finding what your looking
for on the web is becoming harder and harder. Seeing a message "100,000
hits reported", I'm sure isn't the high light of your day. The following will assist
you in using a search engine to its fullest.
Here is a list of the most popular Search Engines:
 Excite
Excite Power Search
Alta Vista
Alta Vista Canada
Lycos
Yahoo
Yahoo Canada
Info Seek
Webcrawler
Power search and Advanced search options:
Before you begin, there is a page, that can make
your search more productive. Most sites have a power
search or advanced
option page. I can't stress this page enough. It allows you to be very
pacific in your search, with easy to use check boxes, and pull down menus.
Special Syntax and Boolean Operators:
Syntax and boolean operators allow you to further
define your search. To get a full listing of all the options available,
look for a help or tips page on your favorite search engines site.
Syntax:
"", Double
quotes allows for the search of comple phases, or group of words in a document.
Example:
Super man by its self would turn
up any pages containing the words Super and/or Man.
When the words are contained in quotes, only pages containing the phrase
Super man will be listed.
+,
The plus sign in front of a word, requires it to be in all the pages.
-,
The minus sign in front of a word, excludes it from the search.
Example:
If you wanted to search for Dogs and not cats.
The syntax would be +dogs -cats.
Boolean Operators:
Boolean Operators work alot like the syntax above, excpet in place of +,- you use AND, NOT.
Example:
If you wanted to search for Dogs and not cats.
The syntax would be dogs NOT cats.
Newsgroups
Another great place to find excellent information
is at newsgroups. Newsgroups are like giant posting boards. Anyone in the
world can post a question, and in a couple of days someone will answer
it. The only draw back, is the waiting period. Worst yet,
that same question may have been asked 100s of times and is starting to
really annoy regular readers. This is where Dejanews
comes in. It is a search engine for newsgroups. With dejanews, you will
be able to find answers to your questions that were asked last week or
even last year. |
beh0lder@hotmail.com