The net is the biggest library in the world, the problem is that the books are stacked in no particular order. If you don't have a way to find what you're looking for quickly, you're going to waste a lot of your time climbing the shelves.

Like browsing in a bookstore, serendipity is a way to find things you didn't even know you were looking for, by jumping from page to page.

If you're looking for a company, magazine or concept, try typing a word (no spaces) in the address space at the top of your browser.

Your browser will automatically add http://www. in front and .com at the end. This will often work, and saves time.

For example type time (magazine) or apple (computer) or sony (corporation). If you're looking for a US school add .edu as in mit.edu or yale.edu.

Sometimes the result is not what you expect, as with birth, scientific or madonna.

If the browser doesn't respond within twenty seconds, try another word, or a search engine.

Search Engines are webpages designed to search for keywords in other webpages, usenet postings or email addresses. Using search engines is a personal thing, and my favorite ones have evolved over time.

 

I prefer Meta-searchers, engines like Metacrawler that interrogate several search engines and then sort the results.

3 basic tips for the beginners

1. avoid common words when searching, or words that you suspect to be common on the internet.

For example if you're looking for Patti Smith, try looking for Patti [Metacrawler fast search] rather than Smith [Metacrawler comprehensive search].

2. Take the time to understand the advanced options of your favorite search engine, it will save you hours of looking through hundreds of results. At the very least, I recommend using QUOTES (or AND or the + sign) when searching for two or more words.

For example, searching for "Benjamin Franklin" [Metacrawler example] or Benjamin AND Franklin [Magellan search for sites] will avoid results with only one term ( like Franklin Roosevelt or Walter Benjamin).

3. If you're new at this searching stuff, try using 2 or more words to search for something you know a lot about with some of these search engines, each will give you different results. This may seem like a boring exercise, but knowing about searching will mean hours of saved time in the long run.

You may also want to try finding someone, like yourself, a long-lost friend or me [Lycos email search] with one of the engines dedicated to people.

The webreference guide to searching is a great place to study searching. You can also jump to the conclusion about which search engine to use.

 

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