Do you feel like you’re never finding what you’re looking for on the Internet? This may be because you are not looking at the right place or the right way.
We offer 7 tips to find everything you are looking for in the search engines!
You can use the “or” in your Internet searches. This can be useful if you hesitate between two expressions or want to get more search results.
Ex: If you are looking for “Cat or Dog”, the search engine will give you results containing cat, dog or both.
The “-” symbol returns Internet search results that do not contain a given term. The “-” must be adjacent to the term to be deleted.
Ex: If you are looking for “Cat-dog”, the search engine will return results that contain cat, but do not contain dog.
If you want to find an exact term when searching the Internet, you can use quotation marks. Thus, you will have access to the results exactly related to your statement rather than receiving suggestions that are related to your statement.
Ex: “I think therefore I am.” The search engine will give you all the results containing the the phrase: “I think therefore I am.”
You probably remember having to use the following questions in primary to write a text: who, what, where, when, how, how and why. You will be happy to know that this knowledge will be useful to you in everyday life!
When you search the Internet, you can use these questions to narrow your search terms.
Ex :
| Subject searched | “Hockey” |
| Who? | ” hockey player “ |
| What? | ” ice Hockey “ |
| Where? | “Montreal Hockey” |
| When? | “Spring hockey” |
| How? | “Hockey regulations” |
| How many? | “Hockey number of games” |
| Why? | “Reasons to play hockey” |
You can also use synonyms to increase your chances of finding what you are looking for on the Internet.
Internet search engines do not use words without concrete meaning such as prepositions or adjectives. You do not have to write them unless they are necessary for the expression. In this case, you can use the quotation mark for them to be taken into account.
Ex: Ex: “Les Misérables”. The engine will search all the results with the word “Miserables”.
” “Les Misérables” “. The engine will find the expression “Les Misérables”.
When you’re on Google, you can use “Site:” to find terms in a specific site. Just like for the “-“, there is no space after the colon.
Ex: “Internet packages site:http://www.cooptel.ca/”. The engine will find whenever the terms “Internet packages” appear on the Cooptel website.
You probably do not know about it, but the municipal libraries give you access to a lot of databanks that will complement your Internet searches. From newspaper articles and magazines to encyclopedic content of quality, you have not finished to go around these resources. Enjoy it, it’s free with your annual subscription!
Now that you know how to do your research better on the Internet, you have no reason not to find what you are looking for. And if you ever need help with your computer, you canuse our computer help services!
