How To Use Search Engines
December 21, 2008 Computer Safety Tip
This article will explain how to find what you are looking for on-line with assistance of a Search Engine web site such 
as Google or Yahoo.
Introduction
If you don’t have the exact address of a particular website or have a topic but don’t know what web sites exist about that topic, then use a Search Engine. A Search Engine is like a catalogue of websites where you type some words and the Engine will search for them, it will then present you with list of web sites relevant to your search.
Popular Search Engines
There are many different search engines available, among the most popular are:
• Google
• Windows Live Search
• Lycos
• Yahoo!
• Ask
• Altavista
• Hotbot
• Looksmart
Example Search
This example will show how to use Windows Live Search to search for the web site homepage of popular online auction site eBay.
If the address is unknown of the eBay site, this is where a seach engine is helpful. Type in www.live.com into your browser address bar to go to the Windows Live Search web site.
Type the word eBay into the seach box. Press the Enter key and Live Search will look for the web sites about your subject and will then give you the results. At the top of the list you should find www.ebay.com. If you now click the underlined title link of that result, you should find yourself at the eBay homepage. Click the Back button is your search was not successful and try a different link.
What Kinds Of Items Can I Search For?
Anything can be typed in the search box, e.g. words, names, places, dates and even types of questions or problems. Try to be as precise as you can if you have a particular problem.
Advanced Searches
In some search engines, close to the search box you will notice other options to narrow your search to particular files such as Images.
Click this and when you type a search into the box, the search engine will look for picture files only. Click on Web to go back to searching for web pages.
Some search engines have a link to Options or Prefrences to allow you to be more specific in your searches. The SafeSearch filtering option available on certain search engines is important as it enables you to filter out or to allow explicit text or images to appear in your results.
Using Operators
Most search engines allow you to use what are called Operators. These are query words that have special meaning to the search engine, such as AND.
For example, typing in dog and cat forces the search engine to find pages that contain both the words dog and cat.
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