Search Engine Tricks

If you're having a hard time finding something online, and you
type in your search term, but don't get anywhere near what
you're looking for here's a couple tricks that seem pretty
universal between search engines.

Let's say you're looking for sports cars and all you're getting
is information on baseball and football (sports). What can you
do? Try some of the following:

Try: sports +cars

Most search engines will interpret this as meaning you only want
results that have both the word "sports" and "cars" in them.
Some search engines let you us the word "and" to do this as well
(i.e. sports and cars).

You can also try to exclude terms. Let's say you still aren't
getting what you want with sports cars (you still keep getting
baseball info). Try something like:

sports +cars -baseball

The "-" sign (operand) tells most search engines to exclude
results that have whatever word it is that has the operand in
front of it.

If the above seems too confusing, most search engines have an
"advanced search" option that gives you a web-style way to help
you accomplish the same thing. Instead of using "+ and -" they
use drop down boxes and option buttons. It is usually easier to
search this way.

Also, you may want to try using quotes. If you type in: "sports
cars"

You should only get results that match that exact phrase in that
exact order. Sometimes that can narrow things down considerably.

If all else fails, try a different search engine. Of course the
favorite is Google, but there are thousands of search engines
out there and not all of them support the tips I have shown you
today. If you're having trouble, look for a link for search
tips, search help, advanced search, or how to search. Most
search engines have lots of information on how to use them
successfully.

Bob