| The
thing about search engines is that they
generally display all the web pages that
contain any or both of the words
contained in the search query. So comes the
question: how do we find the information
we are looking for?
There
are various techniques that you can use
to make your search query better which
will then help to achieve more relevant
results.
For
instance if you use the "+"
operator and restructure your query to
"web hosting" + Windows it will
show only those sites that offer Windows
hosting. You can also use the
"AND" Boolean operator,
depending on what you are comfortable
with.
You can
use the "-" operator and key in
"web hosting" - Linux thereby
telling Google to make sure that it does
not display Linux related hosts. This is
the same as using the "NOT"
Boolean operator.
There
are also keywords like ADJ, NEAR etc.
that are used by some of the search
engines. The NEAR operator looks for
keywords specified in the query within
certain proximity of each other i.e. it
makes sure that both the keywords
"web" & "hosting"
are present on the same page and are
placed nearby to each other in the text.
The ADJ
operator is a stricter filter and returns
only those pages where the keywords are
next to each other i.e. it will only
return pages where the keywords
"web" and "hosting"
are mentioned together.
Another
technique to make sure you get better
results is to use a sensible query. Make
use of words that you think will be
contained on the site you are looking
for: "web hosting" is better
then "I want web hosting".
Also
remember that search engines normally
ignore certain words like "a',
"for", "of",
"in", "at" etc.
Another
important thing to remember is that most
search engines have a 'tips' page that
specifically contains information on how
to make better searches on the search
engine. It is always good to read these
tips.
Most
search engines have an advanced search
option that is really useful if you are
not proficient at using operators while
searching.
Searching
and finding what you are looking for is
easy if you are armed with the know-how
of how to do it.
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