How to Find Stuff on the Internet: II

If you have your own Web site, one of the most important things you can do to generate traffic is to submit it to the top dozen or so search engines. When you do this (every search engine has instructions), you'll be asked to supply key words that users might enter to find your site. These key words can also be entered into the HTML code of your Web page. The objective is to try to think of terms that users might enter into a search engine to find what you're offering.

So, if you're selling Nonstandard Auto insurance, you would supply key words and phrases that most consumers might use — not the jargon used in our industry. It's unlikely that someone with a substandard driving record would enter “Nonstandard Auto insurance” in a search engine. They'd probably use such terms as “car insurance,” “cheap car insurance,” “insurance for bad drivers,” “SR22,” and so forth. So, in designing your Web pages and submitting them to search engines, you have to think of what a consumer might be looking for.

Conversely, when you're searching for something, it helps to think of how that information might be displayed on a site that has the information you want. You can't rely on the site having figured out what you're looking for. This requires some creative thought and experimentation. It also helps to know a few tips, tricks, and techniques.

The first step is to pick the right search engine. I'm a big fan of Google and use it 95% of the time. Although other search engines are better for some types of searches, in this article, we'll use Google.

The next step is to study the “help” section of the search engine you're using. Most engines have a help section or tutorial, together with an advanced search feature and/or a preferences setting. Although it helps to study the unique characteristics of each search engine, most engines use a language or syntax that's just about universal.

For example, if you want to find an exact phrase, enclose it in quotation marks. So, you might look for “iiaba's virtual university,” rather than those words without the quotation marks. One of the nice things about Google is that it will first look for the entire phrase (even without parentheses), then the individual words. Not all search engines do this. Also, note that I used all lower case letters. Unless you're positive that a Web page will include the words you're looking for in capital letters, a good rule of thumb is to always use lower case.

With all major search engines, you can also use connectors like “and” and “or.” In addition, you can also use symbols such as “+” and “-” in your search. To illustrate this, let's try to find something using the Google search engine. Click on the Google link to open another browser window and go back and forth between this article and Google by toggling on the buttons at the bottom of your Windows task bar below.

Your assignment is to answer this question: How tall was George Washington? Of course, the first thing, you could do is look for george washington. Go ahead — try it. When I did, Google found about 2,250,000 Web sites with “george washington.” I scanned down the first dozen or so and none of the abstracts for each Web page mentioned anything about Washington's height. Clearly, I wasn't specific enough in my search criteria. One other thing about search engines: If you try to go to all 2,250,000 Web sites, you can't. Even if a search engine says that it found a million Web sites, it won't list more than a few hundred of them. Go ahead and try if you like. I'll wait.

The next step is to refine your search. When I searched Google for “george washington,” it also included listings for George Washington University. Using the minus (-) sign, you can search for all Web pages that include “george washington.” but not George Washington University. Enter the following phrase in the search field:

“george washington” –university

Now you'll see that only 411,000 pages are found (since a search engine database changes daily, the numbers will probably be different for you), so we're narrowing down our options. Still, 411,000 is a ton of Web pages. So, let's refine our search even more by looking for the following:

“george washington” -university +height

With this convention, Google should list any page with the phrase “george washington” and the word “height,” but not the word “university.” Bingo! The first Web page I found says “George Washington's height and weight.” However, when I go there, it's just a message board where people are discussing this issue. Just because you find information on the Net, doesn't mean that it's accurate. The listings I got also included the height of the George Washington Bridge, a statue, and some other stuff. So, let's try:

“george washington” -university +tall

Now I'm down to 17,800 Web pages and I see several that mention his height. Unfortunately, they don't all agree; some say he was 6' 0” and others say he was as tall as 6' 4”. Now you're on your own to discover which is correct. When this happens, I usually go with the “name brand” site. For example, if www.britannica.com says he's 6' 3” tall and www.bubbasushistoryemporium.com says he's 7' 8” tall, I'll go with Britannica. You can see that creativity helps in choosing the right words search engine lingo (pluses and minuses) to find what you're looking for.

Now that I've provided a few tips, let's put your new knowledge to work. Here's a Web “scavenger hunt ” to illustrate how to search for stuff on the Internet:

• How tall was President George Washington?
• What is the capital of Nigeria?
• Protoceratops was about the size of: elephant, horse, pig, or ostrich?
• Who is Shorty LeFeuw?
• On what date did president Abraham Lincoln die?
• What is the name of the largest asteroid in the Solar System?
• How tall (to the nearest 1,000 feet) is Mount Everest?
• In what year will Halley's Comet return?
• Bill Wilson is a “big, BIG fan” of what rock band?
• What's the secret of life?

You'll note that these have nothing to do with insurance. That's for two reasons. First, I wanted to select things that most people are unlikely to know and would have to use a search engine to find. Second, these are the same questions I used with my Cub Scout den, so let's see how you do compared to six 10-year-olds!