The Internet is a network of computers around the world that makes it possible for us to view pages of information on the World Wide Web. In order to search out this information in a timely manner there are some things that you should know.
Here you have both the google and yahoo search engines on the same screen.
The word ‘dogs’ has been typed into the search box and would bring back a trillion pages.
Search engines are very different from subject directories. People organize subject directories such as yahoo and about.com. In a search engine computer programs called spiders and robots roam the web and log the words on each page. When you type a word in the search “box” the search engine scans its database and returns a file with links to websites containing the word or words you selected.
Without narrowing your search, you may have thousands of results through which to weed. The following steps should help to narrow your search results:
Select your keywords by brainstorming exactly what it is you want to find out about a subject. Pick out some keywords to describe it.
Place double quotation marks around the keywords, which you have brainstormed. This means you want results from pages that have these words in exactly that order, not just anywhere on a page, which is what you normally receive. Let’s try that. If you didn’t come up with some keywords to search try animal rights issues with and without the double quotes. The results numbers will be shown in the upper right of the page. Check the numbers for with and without the double quotes in a search engine and a search directory.