Search Strategies

Search Engines Explained

Internet search engines are special sites designed to help people find information stored on other sites. "There are differences in the ways various search engines work, but they all perform three basic tasks:
  • They search the Internet -- or select pieces of the Internet -- based on important words.
  • They keep an index of the words they find, and where they find them.
  • They allow users to look for words or combinations of words found in that index."
Google is a search engine and there are lots of others which will give you diferent results. Click here to try some other search engines. Compare your results!

Keyword Searching

Use key words when searching the internet. You only need  few well selected words.  
For example:
You want to know when dinosaurs became extinct.
Using a search engine like Google search just type:

dinosuars extinct

This will get you much better results than typing a question like, "When did dinosaurs become extinct?"

A keyword search looks for words anywhere in a website's record. It will search for dinosaurs and extinct not for words like when, did and become.

Search Tips

Phrase Searching: “… ”

Searches for words that appear side-by-side:

"John Batman"

“Melbourne Cricket Ground”

“global warming”
To learn about boolean search strategies:
internet_search_strategies.pptx
File Size: 306 kb
File Type: pptx
Download File

Truncation: *

Truncation increases the search results. Put the star at the end of the base form of the word.
Search: laugh*
Will search for:
laughs

laughed

laughing

laughter…
Search: explor*
Will search for:
explore

explorer

exploring

exploration…
Image attribution:http://www.flickr.com/photos/95572727@N00/6756753669
Source:http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/search-engine1.htm