Are,You,Finding,What,REALLY,Ne DIY Are You Finding What You REALLY Need?

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Are You Finding What You REALLY Need?:Internet Searching TechniquesBy: Janet L. HallRemember the game Hide & Seek? Just like the game,websites can be hiding from you on the Internet while you tryto seek out particular information, services, or products.How do you find what you are seeking?The Internet is like the KING of all Libraries. Among thestacks you seek. Among the librarians (search engines anddirectories) you perform a query. But if you don't know thelanguage, the search criteria, or your way around, you canget lost playing endless hours of hide & seek.In order for you to locate the information or site you'reseeking, several things must have happened:>> The site owner must register or submit their site with thedirectory in which you are doing a search. Then a realperson goes and checks out their site and decides if the siteis worthy of getting listed in their directory.>> The site owner must register or submit their site with thesearch engine in which you are doing a search OR thesearch engine's robots or spiders must have * crawledthrough * their websites which will rank them by manydifferent factors. The most important factor is the use andweight of the site owner's use of keywords.When you do a search or a query, you type in a word orphrase of words, right? Here is where you might not findwhat you are looking for because the site owner orwebmaster didn't put in the keywords you are typing in thesearch window.Therefore, the site owner or webmaster must determinewhat keywords are important for each page on their websiteand what word(s) you will type in a search window to findtheir site. The words you type in might not be thewebmasters keywords, so you don't find what you arelooking for.To make matters worse, each search engine and directorycan have their own search criteria; however, most are verysimilar.Using particular search strategies can help narrow yoursearch and hopefully find the stuff more relevant to what youare seeking.Seven Searching Techniques to try:>> Read the help section of the search engine or directory>> Put word(s) in quotation marks; tells most search enginesyou're looking for that exact term>> Type in lowercase letters; many search engines arecase-sensitive>> Be specific - instead of typing in organizers, type in professionalorganizers>> Type in the plural form of the word>> Type in the word(s) misspelled, such as organizers ororganisers or orgnaizers>> Type in a longer variation of the word, instead oforganize, type in organizing.Anthony Muller, President of Web Mercs, said in his article,* How to Avoid the Most Common Myths and Blunders of Search EngineOptimization *:* There are hundreds of search engines, but only 20-30 mainones, and just four-five of them account for 60-75% of thetotal search engine traffic. For example, Altavista gets about17% of the total engine market and it equals roughly 40million searches a day; as opposed to Lycos or HotBot whicheach get 2-3% of the market. It would shock you to knowYahoo only gets about 24%! *My two favorite search engines to locate what I'm looking foris dogpile.com and alltheweb.comdogpile.com allows you to search through 14 search enginesat the same time! Type in your word(s), click on FETCH,and WaLA! You've just worked a little smarter, not harder.At dogpile.com you can choose to search through images,audio, auctions, news, FTP, Discussion, and Small Biz.At dogpile you can use advanced searching techniques, byusing additional syntax, that will help * you gain addedcontrol over your search and weed out any unwantedresults. *Additional Syntax for Searching Techniques:>> Type AND between words or the symbol + before a wordthus allowing a specific combination of words to be presentin all search results.Example: Home AND Clutter or Home + Clutter will result indifferent search results.>> Type NOT between words or the symbol - before a wordExample: Dogs NOT Cats or Dogs - Cats will result in siteswhen only dogs appear but not cats.>> Type OR to include both words.Example: Office OR ClutterNot all search engines support these syntaxes in dogpile;therefore, dogpile will only search the engines that supportthe syntax you use, allowing a more tailored result.alltheweb.com searches for documents on the Internet thatcontain your search word(s). They offer a pull down menu tothe left of the search window where you can choose fromdifferent syntaxes. They also offer an advanced searchwhere you can perform word filters, word(s) that should beincluded or excluded from your search.Here's to finding what you are looking for!Smiles, not Piles, Janet L. Hall is the owner of OverHall Consulting, an organizing firm for office, home, computer clutter, and yourlife. Visit her website at http://www.overhall.com Phone consultations and coaching are available.Copyright (c) 2001 by OverHall Consulting P.O. Box 263, Port Republic, MD 20676 All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce, copy, or distribute this article so long as article is kept intact, this copyright notice, and full information about the author is attached. Article Tags: Search Engines, Site Owner, Search Engine, Searching Techniques