ONE of the most common complaints about the internet, and the webin particular, is that you get so overwhelmed with irrelevantinformation that you cannot find what you want. This certainly usedto be the case, but it is becoming less and less of a problem,particularly if you put a little thought into your web searches.
The first thing to remember is that if you are looking for aparticular organisation some variation on its name is likely to beits web address. So if you type www.scotsman.com into your browser'saddress box it will take you to this newspaper's website.
This theory does not always work. Until recently if you typed inwww.bbc.com you would find yourself at the website for a computercompany in Boston. If you cannot find a particular website or if youdo not know where the best source of information is, that is whenyou need a search engine.
There are now several hundred of these, all slightly different,but none of which cover everything on the web; it is just too big.Search engines are, however, improving all the time and theirresults are generally becoming more relevant.
Many of the best-known have added more services, so that thelikes of Yahoo!, AltaVista and Lycos have become portals rather thansimply search engines. But a few have retained their purity.
The oddly-named Google at www.google.com simply offers a box foryou to type in the term you are searching for with two buttonsunderneath: "Google search" or "I'm feeling lucky". Click the firstand it will respond in the same way as most search engines with alist of web addresses sorted by relevance. It works prettyintelligently and, in my experience, quickly finds the sites I amlooking for. The second button, "I'm feeling lucky", takes youstraight to the site at the top of the list which may save time.
There are a number of conventions which most search engines useto make results more relevant. Most importantly, the more words youput in the query the more likely you are to find what you are after.For instance, typing "Scotsman newspaper" should eliminate most ofthe lists of unfunny tight-fisted Jock jokes. Another useful trickis to put an exact phrase into quotation marks. "Heart of MidlothianFootball Club" should bring results in the Premier Division ratherthan information about a novel or Edinburgh tourist attraction.
Search engines will also offer a way of excluding irrelevantresults, often by putting a minus sign in front of a word or phrase.So if you wanted to find something about our Chancellor of theExchequer in advance of the budget, but not the Scottishinternationalist of the same name you could type "-rugby" in thesearch (excluding the quotation marks).
If all this is beginning to sound complicated, there arealternatives. Ask Jeeves has a United States version atwww.askjeeves.com and a British version at www.askjeeves.co.uk. Youcan type in a question in a normal way such as: "How much is my carworth?" It will then link you to a number of sites which willprovide you with that information. Ask Jeeves is also very good as asort of online encyclopaedia if you want to know the meaning of aparticular word or phrase.
If it is not a specific question that you want answered you mayprefer to browse through categories until you come across somethinginteresting. Yahoo! (www.yahoo.co.uk) is not the most extensivebecause it relies on teams of surfers checking each site, but itdoes take you to some interesting places as you navigate through itstree-like structure. The heavily-advertised Lycos portal(www.lycos.com) provides a similar service and throws up less USresults than most. AltaVista (www.altavista.com) as well as theusual generalised searches has specific options for images, video,audio and MP3 files.
None will cover the whole web as it is growing so fast, but ifyou can cope with the quantity of results, there are sites whichbring together results from a variety of search engines. All OneSearch (www.allonesearch.com) covers more than 500 engines andsimilar resources. It is very American but may be worth a look ifnothing else has given you the answers you are looking for.
If all else fails, ask God. He (or she) lives at www.god.co.uk asthe Global Online Directory with some fair answers, particularly forUK business-oriented questions.
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