Guide: Searching the Web
Search tips
You can improve the quality of the results you get from a search engine by using a few basic techniques:
- Use specific keywords
- Use 2 or 3 search terms or phrase searching
- Enclose phrases in quotation marks; eg "chocolate cake"
- If your search term has more than one meaning you can focus your search by putting a minus sign ("-") in front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid eg: +virus -computer will find information about viruses but not computer viruses.
- Restrict your search to words in the title. On Google use intitle:and your keyword (no space after intitle) to return pages with that word in the title, e.g. intitle:"philips curve" will find sites with Philips Curve in the title of the page.
- Use the Advanced Search options to refine your search by domain (web site address) or date.
All search engines have online help screens. Use these to find out more information about how to improve your searching.
