Searching the Internet

There are a wide range of sites that let you search the whole Internet for the information you want. These sites are typically called 'search engines'. These search engines can help you find what you are looking for - all you need to do is type in a few keywords, separated by spaces, that relate to the information you are looking for and hit 'go'. The search engine will then give you a list of pages, with the pages most relevant to your keywords listed first.

Popular search engines include:

• Google
• Hotbot
• AltaVista
• Lycos

There are also a wide range of 'meta' search engines available. These sites let you enter your search keywords once and then submit your search to a number of other search engines at the same time. Popular 'meta' search engines include:

• Dogpile
• Meta Crawler
• Ask Jeeves
• Savvy Search

For further information on search engines you can visit Find Spot.

Tips for Using Search Engines

Often you will find what you are looking for by simply putting in a few keywords and searching. However, sometimes it can be difficult to find exactly what you are after because of the huge volume of information that is available on the Internet. The following tips could help you:

1. Use keywords that are as specific as possible - avoid very general words as these will bring back a lot of results for you to look through.
2. The more information on what you want can also help the search engine - so if you can think of more keywords that relate to what you are looking for, put them in.
3. Experiment with the advanced search facilities on web search engines - they enable you to fine tune your search.