Internet Searching Tips

When searching the internet you have to use more then one search engine in order to get a complete search. Using one search engine will narrow your findings and possibly keep you from finding what you're looking for because most search engines are not perfect and are sometimes unorganized, flawed and manipulated. I found something that I was looking for at the top in the number one position on one search engine and could not find it on another search engine. So one is flawed or manipulated and the other search engine is not. Going several pages deep will also help find information because the first 10 choices are sometimes irrelevant. I have found things that I'm looking for 30 pages deep. Using different key words and phrases also helps. Sometimes using different keywords and phrases that you find within the search results may also help increase your odds of finding what you're looking for. Sometimes checking a websites links on their resources page may also help you find websites that are not listed correctly in search engines.

Most search engines like Google have advanced searching tools found on the side and at the bottom
 of their search pages.

Knowing where to type in certain characters in your search phrases also helps you find what you're looking for.

If you want to limit your searches on Google to only education websites or government websites
 then type in "site:edu" or "site:gov" after your key word or search phrase.
For example Teaching Mathematical Concepts site:edu
For searching a specific website type in "neutrino site:harvard.edu after the word or search phrase.

To narrow your searches to file types like PowerPoint, excel or pdf's then type in filetype:ppt after the word.

For search ranges use 2 periods between 2 numbers, like "Wii $200..$300."

Using quotes or a + or - within your search phrases. Example, imagine you want to find pages that have references to both President Obama and President Bush on the same page.
You could search this way: +President Obama+President Bush
Or if you want to find pages that have just President Obama and not President Bush then your search would be
President Obama -President Bush.

If you are looking for sand sharks search engines will give you results with the word sand and sharks but if you use quotation marks around "sand sharks" it will help narrow your search.

Using "~" (tilde) before a search term yields results with related terms.

Conversions try typing "50 miles in kilometers" or 100 dollars in Canadian dollars.

Use Google to do math just enter a calculation as you would into your computer's calculator
(i.e. * corresponds to multiply, / to divide, etc)

To find a time in a certain place type in    Time: Danbury, Ct

Just got a phone call and want to see where the call is from  Type in 3 digit # area code
Type any address into Google's main search bar for maps and directions.
While on Google Maps select the day of the week and the time of day for the traffic forecast.

You can learn even more great search tips by visiting this website Search Engine Watch.

Learning Boolean Logic can also help with improving your Internet searching skills.


 

These are just some of the web searching tips that I have learned using the Internet for the last 10 years, which has qualified me as a Human Search Engine. This was one of the main reasons for creating this website. Not just to have a great resource, but also as an absolute necessity. Because if you want to find things easily, it's a good idea to be organized and to know your sources. And since I do not allow automatic submissions to my Human Search Engine I have better control and protection against abuse and fraud that plague other search engines. The only weakness in a human controlled link database, or Human Edited Directory, is that sometimes the ULR is sold which makes the website go down or point to another website that is totally different from the original. This also happens to other search engines so this is not unique to just human edited directories.

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You wont find everything on the internet because there are truths about our world that have not yet been posted.
But if you now how to use the internet you will be considerably more educated and a lot more informed about the world, that is because TV and news papers will only say so much and are sometimes guilty of manipulating the truth because of money and corporate influence.

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Google announced on 7/25/2008 that it had indexed over 1 trillion unique URL's
In the October 2009 survey, Netcraft received responses from 230,443,449 sites. Up from 156 million websites in 2008.
 Apache is responsible for more than 60% of this month's total growth of 4.3 million sites.
             
 Internet World Statistics      1.6 Billion People on the Internet
 

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