Search Engines

Search Engines, FAQs & Search Sites

Effective Searches | Evaluating Search Results | Search Engines | Blog Search Engines | Search Tools

Effective Searches FAQ

Use Help Pages & FAQs

When searching for information on the Internet using Search Engines spend a few moments checking the help pages and FAQs you find there. It will enhance you search time by avoiding some common errors.

Be Selective

Choose your search terms to obtain the best results. You might need to experiment a bit to find what works best for you.

Don't make your search too broad or too narrow.
Use lower case instead of upper or mixed case.
Specify exactly what it is you want. (Use copyright instead of law).
State what search terms must be on a page to be selected.
Refine your search terms if you get too many responses.

Know Your Search Engine

Not all search engines use the same methods to catalogue pages and search results may vary by search engine.

Not all search engines catalogue the same items or search in the same manner. Try another search engine if you don't get the results you need or if you feel uncomfortable with the interface.
Use modifiers (i.e. +, -, NOT, OR...) only if you understand what effect they will have in the search engine you are using.

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Evaluating Search Results

The Internet places a great deal of information at your fingertips but requires that you use discernment when judging the quality of the material you locate. Anyone can publish on the Web. It is up to you to determine the validity of the information you find.

One common acronym is CARS (credibility, accuracy, reasonableness, support) will help when deciding whether to include information you find on the web. These sites may help:

Evaluating Web Resources discusses adapting the five traditional print evaluation criteria (accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency and coverage) to evaluating information found on the Web.
Evaluating Internet Research Sources by Robert A. Harris.
Internet Detective discern the good, the bad and the ugly for your online research.

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Search Engines

Startpage offers you Web search results from Google in complete privacy!

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Blog Search Engines

BlogsCanada — The Pulse of Canada! ()
Technorati indexes more than a million blogs by category.
BlogDigger focuses on high quality blogs.
Blog Search Engine focuses on high quality blogs.
IceRocket includes tools for bloggers.
BlogPulse works like a typical search engine, except that it is tuned to search only on blog data.

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Search Tools

Check pricing and terms of service before installing software or contracting services.

Search Software

Ensure you can meet the system requirements before installing the software on your computer.

Copernic Agent interfaces with multiple search engines at one time.
Google Desktop Search your own computer.

Search Services

TracerLock fee-based web monitoring/web clipping service.

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