These four search engines are the most widely used:
Search Engines
When conducting a search using a search engine, it is important to note that the engines do not search the Internet itself, they search databases of information about the Internet which the search engine company has developed.
This is why using the same search terms over different search engines will produce different results.
Directories
Directories are an attempt to bring order to the Web by grouping web sites under subject headings. Directories use humans to review websites and then categorise them.
Directories can be general, academic, or subject specific.
This gives users the opportunity to search by category as well as keyword which is good for browsing.
Most search engines will give you more advanced options than just a basic keyword search. This can be very useful if you are looking for particular kinds of information.
Google Advanced Search allows you to search in specific domains, for example if you want to search for government documents from Australia you can type in ".gov.au" into the field called "Search within a site or domain".Other options include excluding certain words from your results and limiting your search to pages created within a specific date range.
These options will allow you to create a more specific search, giving you more relevant information.
More search tips for Google are available: http://www.google.com.au/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861
Boolean Operators and symbols
Most search engines allow you to use some some operators or symbols to make your searches more powerful
| AND | OR | NOT | Phrase | Truncation/ Stemming | |
| Ask |
default (single space), AND |
OR |
NOT, -n (n is the word to be excluded) | " " | not available |
| default (single space) | OR |
-n (n is the word to be excluded) | " " | some automatic stemming | |
| Bing | default (single space), AND, & |
OR, | | NOT, -n (n is the word to be excluded) | " " | not available |
| Yahoo | default (single space) | OR | -n (n is the word to be excluded) | " " | some automatic stemming |
There is more detailed information available on search engine home pages or help pages.
