Using Search Engines, how to use search engines, search engines tutorial, free lessons

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The rules of thumb....

Use Canadian search engines for canada (.ca) for best results

ie: msn.ca, yahoo.ca, google.ca, lycos.ca...

Who ~ What ~ Where

search who & where

or what and where

or what who & where

and search a phrase or part phrase when possible in quotes "ABC".

Upper case or lower case doesn't matter in most search engines

eg: Finding a glass shop in Provost.

Your search term to type in would be;

Glass Provost

or glass shops provost

or glass repairs provost

or window repairs provost

or replacement windows

or replacement glass

or "windows provost alberta"

Try it as a phrase ( "in Quotes" ) if the website has the words listed together

etc etc etc. (but no underline) :>)

Keep it simple and think of the way you look things up in the yellow pages.

Sometimes you might be looking for a title of a movie or book

Type in the full name of the title in Quotations as follows

(What) "The Call Of The Wild" (Quotes are used to find a specific Phrase or Title)

Want to find it in Alberta?

Then No quotes

The Call Of The Wild alberta

or "The call of the wild" + alberta

It's actually quite straight forward once you get the hang of it.

Below are a series of basic search tips for most of the more popular search engines.

Give it a try with the links above.

be prepared to sort through a bit of unrelated links...

That unfortunately is sometimes just a part of the web.

More Tips

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."
--Samuel Johnson, 1744

NOTE: These tips will work with most search engines in their basic search option.

	Use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches. EXAMPLE: +meat -potatoes (NO space between the sign and the keyword)
	Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, with the words side by side in the same order. EXAMPLE: "bye bye miss american pie" (Do NOT put quotation marks around a single word.)
	Put your most important keywords first in the string. EXAMPLE: dog breed family pet choose
	Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and upper case versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match. EXAMPLE: president retrieves both president and President
	Use truncation (or stemming) and wildcards (e.g., ) to look for variations in spelling and word form. EXAMPLE: librar returns library, libraries, librarian, etc. EXAMPLE: : color returns color (American spelling) and colour (British spelling)*
	Combine phrases with keywords, using the double quotes and the plus (+) and/or minus (-) signs. EXAMPLE: +cowboys +"wild west" -football -dallas (In this case, if you use a keyword with a +sign, you must put the +sign in front of the phrase as well. When searching for a phrase alone, the +sign is not necessary.)
	When searching within a document for the location of your keyword(s), use the "find" command on that page.

Which Search Page Should I Use When, and How?
Use . . .	If You . . .	Using the Feature . . .
Lycos	have no good ideas for specific search strategies	best test results for broad search terms
" "	want to find someone's e-mail	People Finder.
Magellan	have more than one broad search word, or can't pick a site from Lycos' summaries.	best available results summaries.
" "	want interactive news/ want details on today's headlines.	news with links to related sites.
OpenText	want to search only document title or perform complex searches	title search specification, best advanced search interface.
Alta Vista	are hunting for an image	image:search_word syntax.
" "	want to find all the links to your page	+link:your_site -url:your_site syntax.
Yahoo!	want the best national and international news	Reuters world headlines.
" "	want a dictionary or other reference source	Dictionaries or Reference Libraries.

Hope these tips help.... Happy Hunting!