How Do I Search using a Search Engine?
Let’s face it. Life today wouldn’t be the same without search engines. In today’s day of information overload, the Search Engines tend to bring a calming effect as well as a balance to this plethora of content.
However, most of us get overwhelmed even searching for simple common terms. This is primarily because there is way too much information that we can’t seem to grasp at once or is frankly, quite overwhelming. This article will try and explain how we can search better using simple search techniques. I will focus on complex searching in a later article.
I relate searching for content and information more like filtering the information through a funnel. The information and results that you get is directly proportional to what you search and how you search for it. What I mean is that you could be at either receiving end of the funnel. A Y or an inverted Y. You always want to be receiving information through a Y channel. The top part of the Y stands for the Internet and the bottom “stem” of the Y is the information that is being “funneled”. This way, you limit/control the information coming to you. For the inverted Y scenario, simple reverse the situation above. Now you have way too much information coming at you. This is when a typical internet surfer gets “over-whelmed”.
So how can you control the amount of information coming to you? Search engines have become smarter these days and will let you search using specific criteria. What I present here is basic and should work for most scenarios. However, as you get experienced you can get on to the more complex ones.
Perhaps the best way to learn about searching is to go through an example. Living in Beautiful British Columbia I would like to talk about Whistler, a popular ski resort. So for my example, I want to find out resorts that I can stay at, in Whistler. (Note: All example results below are using the popular search engine, Google. Other search engines may display slightly different results.)
I go into Google and type “tourism Canada”. I get 15.5 million results. That will take a while to browse through. So I go back to my search engine and type “tourism british columbia”, since I know I am interested in the province of British Columbia. Now I get 6 million results. Ah ha! Progress.
Now I get back and type “tourism +british +columbia”. All of a sudden I get 3.9 million results. So, what happened? You see the + operator tells the search engine to ensure ALL words with the + sign should be present in the document otherwise don’t return the result.
So what if I type “tourism +Whistler”. I get 743,000 results. Looking better. But what if I type “tourism +British +Columbia +Whistler”. Now I get 243,000 results. Do you see a pattern here? The more +’s I have, the more I am funneling my results. Of course, taking this further O can type “tourism +british +columbia +whistler +resort” since I am looking for resorts in Whistler. Now I’m down to 138,000 pages.
We learnt a very fundamental principle about search engines that we can apply to all of our searches as well as in our business. The principle was that “the more number of words we type in the search box, the narrower our results”.
So what does this tell us? This simply tells us that people who use one or two word search phrases in search engines are simple researching or trying to find out more information. People who use 4+ search phrases in the search engine box are potential buyers. A very important fact to note.
Of course, you don’t get by with just a +. Here are some other “tricks” you could use in search engines.
- This tells the search engine to exclude the respective keyword from the search results. For example: typing in “job manager -technical -software” displays 14.4 million results as against 22 million results without the – keywords.
“” So far, all search phrases have been without quotes (although I’ve typed it because I’m writing an article. The “” help us to search for all words ensuring they are close to each other. For example, searching for “tourism British Columbia” without the quotes will return pages that have all three words, but they could be scattered across the document. So my page may not be of relevance. However, enclosing the search string in “” tells the search engines to ensure the words follow the same sequence and are in close proximity to each other. This increases the relevance of your searches as well as the quality of your results.
Elvin Picardo
Delivering Net Results to Small Business
Author of numerous articles on web development and Internet Marketing for small business
10723 159th St, Surrey, BC V4N 3J1 Canada
NetMedian.com
Contact Elvin
However, most of us get overwhelmed even searching for simple common terms. This is primarily because there is way too much information that we can’t seem to grasp at once or is frankly, quite overwhelming. This article will try and explain how we can search better using simple search techniques. I will focus on complex searching in a later article.
I relate searching for content and information more like filtering the information through a funnel. The information and results that you get is directly proportional to what you search and how you search for it. What I mean is that you could be at either receiving end of the funnel. A Y or an inverted Y. You always want to be receiving information through a Y channel. The top part of the Y stands for the Internet and the bottom “stem” of the Y is the information that is being “funneled”. This way, you limit/control the information coming to you. For the inverted Y scenario, simple reverse the situation above. Now you have way too much information coming at you. This is when a typical internet surfer gets “over-whelmed”.
So how can you control the amount of information coming to you? Search engines have become smarter these days and will let you search using specific criteria. What I present here is basic and should work for most scenarios. However, as you get experienced you can get on to the more complex ones.
Perhaps the best way to learn about searching is to go through an example. Living in Beautiful British Columbia I would like to talk about Whistler, a popular ski resort. So for my example, I want to find out resorts that I can stay at, in Whistler. (Note: All example results below are using the popular search engine, Google. Other search engines may display slightly different results.)
I go into Google and type “tourism Canada”. I get 15.5 million results. That will take a while to browse through. So I go back to my search engine and type “tourism british columbia”, since I know I am interested in the province of British Columbia. Now I get 6 million results. Ah ha! Progress.
Now I get back and type “tourism +british +columbia”. All of a sudden I get 3.9 million results. So, what happened? You see the + operator tells the search engine to ensure ALL words with the + sign should be present in the document otherwise don’t return the result.
So what if I type “tourism +Whistler”. I get 743,000 results. Looking better. But what if I type “tourism +British +Columbia +Whistler”. Now I get 243,000 results. Do you see a pattern here? The more +’s I have, the more I am funneling my results. Of course, taking this further O can type “tourism +british +columbia +whistler +resort” since I am looking for resorts in Whistler. Now I’m down to 138,000 pages.
We learnt a very fundamental principle about search engines that we can apply to all of our searches as well as in our business. The principle was that “the more number of words we type in the search box, the narrower our results”.
So what does this tell us? This simply tells us that people who use one or two word search phrases in search engines are simple researching or trying to find out more information. People who use 4+ search phrases in the search engine box are potential buyers. A very important fact to note.
Of course, you don’t get by with just a +. Here are some other “tricks” you could use in search engines.
- This tells the search engine to exclude the respective keyword from the search results. For example: typing in “job manager -technical -software” displays 14.4 million results as against 22 million results without the – keywords.
“” So far, all search phrases have been without quotes (although I’ve typed it because I’m writing an article. The “” help us to search for all words ensuring they are close to each other. For example, searching for “tourism British Columbia” without the quotes will return pages that have all three words, but they could be scattered across the document. So my page may not be of relevance. However, enclosing the search string in “” tells the search engines to ensure the words follow the same sequence and are in close proximity to each other. This increases the relevance of your searches as well as the quality of your results.
Elvin Picardo
Delivering Net Results to Small Business
Author of numerous articles on web development and Internet Marketing for small business
10723 159th St, Surrey, BC V4N 3J1 Canada
NetMedian.com
Contact Elvin
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