EFFECTIVE SEARCH TRICKS
Following
are some techniques that make a search more effective and less time-consuming.
Step 1: Decide where to search
Students do not know that search engines only cover a superficial
part of the web and even the BIG ones only cover 30% of documents on the web.
Different search engines access different pages with a different
frequency of being updated. Search engines are always developing and
changing.
Step 2: Use the special functions
(works with most search engines)
These help
us to find a particular type of file. Some of them are listed below
.doc (Microsoft
word)
.docx (Open
Office XL)
.pdf (portable document format) This is a good
one to use when searching
.html or
.htm (hypertext markup language - coding)
.jpeg (for photos)
.gif (for graphics)
.ppt and .pptx (Microsoft power point and Open
Office PowerPoint)
.mp3, .mp4, .m4a, .aac all for audio formats
.xspf (shareable
playlist format - students will love this one)
.xls (Microsoft excel spreadsheets)
.flv or .swf (flash
video)
.mp4 (most Apple and Sony products)
.mov (Quick Time)
There are hundreds of file extensions on the web but these are the most common.
Step 3: Use special
commands (no space before the
keyword)
Use double quotes “ “
for results with that exact word or phrase. Many search engines
will default to synonyms.
Use Boolean operators
such as AND, NOT, and OR for more specific results. Always capitalize
them or you can use + and -.
Step 4: Evaluating sources
Data can be inaccurate, out of
date, biased and irrelevant. Authority should be checked. The link must also be
checked. Domain names are not guarantees but students should prefer .gov .edu
.ac .net .com or .org.
The date should also be checked as when was the site last updated. The publisher of the page must also be reviewed.
Advantages of Google over other search engines
1 Trillion+ Sites Indexed
The biggest advantage of the Google search engine
is perhaps the sheer number of sites it indexes. In 1998 Google indexed 26
million sites, in the year 2000 that number grew to 1 billion sites and today
Google is said to have over a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) websites indexed.
What this means to you, as a user of the Google search engine, is you have a
much better chance of finding, not only the information you want but a wide
variety of sources that offer this information. Compare this to only having
access to a smaller subset of this information indexed by alternative search engines and you can see why Google
search leads the pack when it comes to internet search
engines.
2 The Most Relevant Sites
Another advantage of the Google search engine is that it so good at putting
the most relevant sites at the top of the results list. Google does this by
rating sites based on how many other sites link to it. The more popular the
site that links to your site, the better Google search engine ranking you get.
Google figures if several high-quality and/or popular sites link to your site
then it must contain some useful information.
3 Variety of File Formats
Google search indexes various file formats including the very popular PDF file format and Microsoft Office files. Much of the information on the
internet is contained within files that are not of the standard .html and .htm
format. These include, but are not limited to, PDF files, .doc files, and excel
files. Indexing the information in these files allows web authors to store
their information in a variety of formats without worrying about being missed
by the Google web crawler.
4 Google in Pop Culture
In many cases, the term search engine has been replaced in common language
with the term "Google". For example, you are more likely to hear
someone say, "When you get home, Google it" rather than, "When
you get home, search it". Google is mentioned in numerous popular TV Shows
and Movies. This is not an advantage per se, but as pop culture trends go
Google, it has a strong foothold on being the "cool" search engine to
use.The popularity gained by being a part of modern-day pop culture does benefit Google and the users of Google because, as a general rule of thumb, the more popular a product or service becomes, the more resources a company can put into maintaining that product or service.
5 Google Popularity
As mentioned above, Google has gained enormous popularity in recent years
and its popularity is still on the rise. It's not going anywhere anytime soon
and therefore you can be confident that Google will continue to index all the
information it possibly can on the internet and bring it directly to your
screen with just a few keystrokes.
