The Internet is a big place,
containing billions of Web sites about everything from jellyfish to
lawnmower racing! If you have ever used a search engine before, it is
not uncommon to get millions of results for something as simple as
'car.' Muscle cars, racing cars, exotic cars, toy cars, flying cars, and
so on... If you can think of it, someone has probably made a Web site
about it.
Fortunately search engines have
the ability to greatly refine the results it displays if you use the
following tips to narrow your search:
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Wildcards |
Most search engines take
advantage of two types of wildcards: the asterisk (*) and the
percent symbol (%). The asterisk is more general and helps you
match a particular term. For example, if you searched for chemi*,
you would get results for chemical, chemist, and chemistry. The
percent sign usually denotes a single letter or character and is
helpful in correcting a misspelled word. For example, if you
searched for gene%logy you will get a few responses for
geneology and many responses for genealogy, which is the correct
spelling of the word. |
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Quotes |
When using most search
engines, you can search for a particular phrase by enclosing
your search in double quotes. For example, to browse Web sites
that contain Hamlet's famous line "To be or not to be,” simply
type the phrase, with double quotes around it, into the text
field of a search engine. The results returned contain
effectively all Web pages on the Internet containing that
particular quote. |
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Keywords |
The example of ‘car’ as
a search term will return millions of results. You can specify
to a search engine that you want to search for one particular
class of cars by adding more keywords, but adding some operators
will help refine the search. For example, if you searched for
“cars + hybrid” you would retrieve many more results about
energy-efficient cars. Conversely, if you searched for “cars –
racing – sports” you would get results about the more modest
vehicles on the road today. |
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