Search Engines

Popular search engines include google, msn, lycos and altavista to name but a few. The key to a sucsessful search is knowing how to search. Firstly open up a search engine page by clicking on one of the links. If your search word isn't very common you're more likely to get what you want, for example if you search for "ikibits" you'll only get this site's URL (web-adress) listed, with a few others. If your search term is very common, you might want to consider using more advanced searching techniques.

Basic and Advanced Techniques

Now I'm not going to re-invent the wheel, so instead I'll refer you to google's search engine tips here! Most seach engines use very similar syntax, so you can apply google's terms to any search engine. Here's a quick rundown:

• Searching exact phrases? use quotes e.g: "blue tyres"
• Including words, numbers or letters to searches? use the symbol "+" eg: Star Wars Episode +III
• Excluding search terms? use the symbol "-" e.g: Tyres -black
• Using search operators like AND and OR e.g: pc help AND ikibits OR "search engines"
• Number ranges? use ".." to denote a range e.g: PCI graphics card £50..£200,
• If you want to use more advanced search tools you can usually find the advanced search options near to the search box

Other types of search engines

Internet technology is moving on, and now we have the pleasure of being able to search using better, more refined tools in order to find what we want. For example, if you want information that can be found in an encylopeadia, try wikipedia. If you know exactly what product you want you can try "froogle" (google's shopping search engine), or you can try shopgenie or pricerunner. For auctions and second hand goods ebay has almost everything. If you like history you can try the timeline search at history.uk.com featured recently on radio 4. Picsearch is a dedicated search engine for images.

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