Searching the right way

<>Everyone who uses the web and many others have heard of Google, but I don’t expect many to know about or remember AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, Excite, Mamma, and a whole number of others. They are all search engines and help us find websites, articles and many other things on the web. Or rather they often help us find what we did not want, returning to us a mass of links, which are not what we were trying to find. 

My tip this month is when you are next using Google or your favourite search engine; take a look at the help link, or the advanced search link. You will find that by doing things like putting double quotes round your query can reduce the number hits and can give you want you are looking for. A little reading and some thought before just typing in your query can really help get the answer you are looking for. An example will help. Try first a search for buntingford catholic church, and then for buntingford “catholic church” and you will see the second search is more focused. Sometimes it takes a bit of effort, but it almost always pays off. Of course it is one reason why there are Information Scientists in big companies, because finding things in books, journals or on the Internet is an art.

<>Google is extremely popular, because it is a very good system. The results you see so fast are produced by very clever software and lots of hardware. There are also a lot of other things Google can search for. Take a little time to browse the pages at www.google.com and www.google.co.uk – it may surprise you.

John Kimberley

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