Effectively searching the World Wide Web

Here are some ways to more effectively search the WWW:

• Use more than one search term at a time. Put a single space between words in the form.
  
• Use boolean operators. These greatly help narrow your search. The boolean operators used in the WWW are similar to their English counterparts and are listed below.
  

  AND, + - Finds only instances where both terms are present. ex. peaches AND cream
  

  OR - Finds any instance where either term is present. ex. milk OR cream
  

  AND NOT, - - Finds an instance of the first term but not the second. ex. television AND NOT radio
  

  NEAR - Finds nearby terms. Useful for misspellings or plurals. ex. NEAR basebal
  

  " ", ( ) - groups terms together. ex. "Integrated Marketing Communications" or (marketing OR advertising) AND NOT finance

• Use a better search tool. The three search tools below are highly effective at performing better searches. You do not HAVE to use these, but I HIGHLY recommend it.
  http://www.google.com (My personal favorite)
http://lycospro.lycos.com/lycospro-nojava.html Note: Uses Boolean AND and OR only.
http://altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=aq&what=web

• Narrow your search. Don't be afraid to go back and refine the search if your first attempt reveals too many or too few matches.
• Read the discriptions. Looking at the summary of a page before following a link will save time.
• Follow links in another window. By right-clicking (Windows) or clicking on a link and holding the mouse button (Mac), you can get an option for "New Window with this Link." This will allow you to search a few promising links simultaneously while still keeping the original list open.
• Eliminate links you don't want. If you're looking for a company, the domain name will always be either .com or sometimes .net. Eliminating any domain with .edu, .gov, or .mil will speed your search for relevant links.
• Put more relevant terms first. The more important they are, the closer to the front of the list they should be.
• Use case effectively. Use uppercase words when you only want that proper name to show up. Use lowercase if case does not matter.

Also, in order to search for a company's domain name and contact information, use the following URL:
http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?XXXXX.XXX
where XXXXX.XXX is the domain name of what you are searching for.

Notes:

• A domain name consists only of the last two parts of an address. This is the bit after the @ in e-mail and is usually after www. in a URL. ex. fringenet.net
• Case does not matter. Uppercase and lowercase are the same.
• Most domains are .com, with .net and .edu following.
• InterNIC searches ONLY for a specific domain name. Unlike web searches, this is to be used only for finding a specific company domain name.
• Start with companyname.com. Nine times out of ten this is the domain name you are looking for.
• InterNIC does not link you to that domain's www page, it just tells you if a domain name exists and who owns it.

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