Search Strategies
Search Strategies
Always start by thinking: The Internet is the best source?
There is much information on the Internet, but the printed information is still the best in many areas.
* The subject – if you search for local and / or old information is generally superior to the printed information.
* Time – much factual information can be found faster in the books, such as in the libraries’ reference departments. There is also a quality made by libraries when they purchase the material, the time-consuming garbage is strewn away.
The ability to get good search results when searching the Internet increases the more you prepare your query. Simply enter the words straight up and down in a search engine often produces too long result lists where the relevant top is mixed up with so many irrelevant that you give up when you have gone through a fraction.
* Formulate the query as clearly as possible. Sort it up into interesting and uninteresting aspects.
* Analyze the query. Pick out key words and key phrases. Look up synonyms, alternate spellings and abbreviations that you use in your search.
* Use the articles, books and other resources you know of to find new keywords.
* Make it clear to any restrictions on time, language, geography. This is relevant to the search engine you choose. Often, these search capabilities in an Advanced Find screen, eg Google’s advanced search.
Type of search
What type of search you should do is relevant to your choice of search engines.
* If you want to do an exhaustive search to find “all” information in a topic, you must use the many search engines and directories structured. No single index or collection covers more than one part of the Internet and all contain unique resources.
* Orientation – to get an overview of key resources in a topic, use the large structured directories. They are a very good starting point when you begin looking information “broad” in one subject. See also the section on Structured directories.
* If you have a specific, “narrow” issue, use the search engines see the section on search engines.
* For coverage of the new resources in a subject, use the various news services and such blogs on the subject.
Once you have decided which concept you should look at the next step is to determine which search options to suit. From there, you decide then which search engine you use.
But… We have made it easy for you! And it is totaly FREE!
Search the Internet can often cause you to find information that does not really match your search. To make your search easy we have put together an information directory of more than 16000 articles on various topics. You can access these articles by clicking here or choose Search index on the menu above.