Internet Searching: Variety is the spice of life

Since I spent so much time in my last post focusing on Google searching, I thought I would share some more of the things I discovered while preparing for my seminar on internet searching. Simple search interface The first thing I discovered is that I like a nice clean simple search interface. I have to admit that Google spoils me that way, but you can find this with other search engines. If blinking text sends you to a padded room and advertizing is not your thing why not try these alternative interfaces. Main pages

• Yahoo
• MSN

Alternatives

• Yahoo
• Yahoo Canada
• MSN
• Sympatico MSN (Canadian content search engine)

Advanced searching The simplest way to start improving your searching is to begin using the advanced search instead of the basic search. You don't have to do a lot of reading to use most of the features. I like that both Google and Yahoo have very similar advanced search pages. It makes it easy for people to transition from one search engine to another. MSN's Search Builder is not a separate page but a little window which helps you to build your search. It's a little different and while I am comfortable with the concept and using the tool it may be too different for novice internet searchers. I guess it all depends on what you learn first! Google Advanced Yahoo Advanced MSN Search Builder Similarities I also discovered that Google, Yahoo and MSN all allow for the use of similar searching strategies. All support the use of boolean operators and nested searching. All use + symbol to make sure a word is included in the search results. All use " " for phrase searching. All use - to remove certain words from search results. All use site: to do search a particular domain name. I guess I always knew that there had to be some commonalities in searching between these search engines but this makes life much easier. Help Sheets While the advanced search engines are a nice quick way to begin improving your search, a little reading will go a long way to making the basic search window work for you. Search engines want to encourage people to use their tool and so supply help sheets. I discovered that while most search engines do provide help sheets, in some cases it is surprisingly difficult to locate the really good stuff. Yahoo Help - Search Tips Yahoo Help - What is Advanced? Yahoo Short Cuts - I love this page but in some instances I can't help but wish there was a Yahoo Canada equivalent! Yahoo Search Services and Tools MSN Web Search Help MSN Keyword and Symbol Reference - A nice one pager but tough to find! Through my preparation for my presentation I came across the following web sites. These are not related to any particular search engine but help people to identify which search engine might be appropriate or supply a quick cheat sheet with tips for many search engines. These seem to have been around for a while and so may not come as a surprise to many of you. Finding information: search engines by Phil Bradley Infopeople's Search Engine Chart I've known about Search Engine Watch for quite some time but really haven't paid to much attention to it. I hear a bunch of gasps coming from cyberspace. I know this is quite probably sacreligous but I just haven't had a lot of time to devote to professional development. I now make the time for professional development and Search Engine Watch is one of the things I .... watch. :) If you've never come across it before, the site is worth a look. It keeps track of the latest trends and details of the search engine world. I love that someone is doing this for me, all I have to do is read the nice concise notes or indepth reviews (depending on time) and I can keep current and look like I know what I'm doing. I believe in learning just enough information to be dangerous. I'll leave developing the expertise up to the experts. But enough of my philosophy of professional development. I'm hoping others will share any really nifty sites they've come across for internet searching tips and tricks. Variety is the spice I am an admitted Google-holic. It's my first choice as a search engine, not necessarily because it's the best but because it's familiar. Since my refresher preparing for my seminar I'm finding myself searching Yahoo because I like the video search and the image search over Google. I go to MSN for the terribly cool Results Ranking sliders in the Search Builder. I'm experimenting more with Clusty and Gigablast for the clustering which I like for more complex searches. I think my final discovery is that I like the variety using multiple internet search engines provides.