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Internet Searching Tutorial
Some search engines will find more desired information than others (and they are compared in some of the following links). In Altavista's advanced search block, for example, typing the following phrase (without the brackets): <"free software" AND "word processor"> would yield listings for free word processor software.
- Constructing very specific key words and/or phrases with quotes is very important if you expect a search engine to display a narrow grouping of meaningful returns, rather than thousands of broadly related items (without quotes above, all documents with "free" would be listed - not just software).
- Look for "free technical support" in subjects-by-category or indexed websites. Then try related key words such as upgrade, tech help, tech workshop, computers, technology, freeware, etc. in a variety of search engines
(because many engines retrieve information in very different ways).
Note: A hint to find related information at a given site is to use the directory-climbing method: Click twice on the URL address in your browser
with the cursor at the end of the address and then backspace to remove the
last sub-directory in that address, one at a time: (http://www.microsoft.com/education/k12/
becomes http://www.microsoft.com/education/).
Press enter for the new directory.
For a sample of different types of search engines, try these engines: