How To Search The Internet Using Google

Out of all the things you can do with the internet Searching The Internet will be your number one activity, whether you like it or not! The internet revolves around searching for something. Information, Music, Products, Services and so on. Before you can begin searching the internet for something you first need to know the website address of a Search Engine website.

A Search Engine website is basically a website with a huge database built-in to it that compares the KeyWords (or KeyPhrases) you type into its SEARCH Edit Box with those keywords (or keyphrases) it has associated and assigned to certain, relevant, web pages. Web pages it has previously searched and catalogued by Title, Keywords, Keyphrases and Website Address amongst other things; so when you search for "English Tea" for example only results relevant to English Tea will be displayed, as hypertext links (website address link).

The four main Search Engine websites are Google (www.google.com), Yahoo (www.yahoo.com), Bing (www.bing.com - Microsoft) and Ask (www.ask.com). This does not mean they are the best, just the most popular. There are other search engine websites out there, but Google is the dominant one - It has its weaknesses, and strengths, just like the other search engine websites though.

Once you have decided which search engine website you want to use type its website address into internet explorer's Address Bar edit box and then press the ENTER keyboard key, or click on the GO (blue arrow) button, to continue. In this section I am using Google.

Fig 1.0 Type the website address of a Search Engine website into internet explorer's Address Bar edit box and then press ENTER

Fig 1.1 Typing a global website address (www.google.com) will normally redirect you to the local website address (www.google.co.uk)

When the search engine website appears it will be displaying an empty SEARCH Edit Box, in preparation for the Keywords or Keyphrases you will type into it in order to conduct a search. If you type the global (.com) website address for your search engine website (i.e. www.google.com) you will probably be redirected, automatically, to the local website address (i.e. www.google.co.uk). This is quite normal. It just means your chosen search engine website prefers to use its local server/database (located in your country) in order to find results that are more relevant to your country, language and/or keywords/keyphrases.

You might still get foreign search results (i.e. French results) but the ratio should be something like 90% English and 10% Foreign in that scenario. It all depends on what you are searching for. Searching for a Turkish Rug (carpet) for example will almost certainly display search results (descriptions) in English, but may contain website links that take you to a Turkish website for example; a Turkish website with Turkish text on it.

If you want to narrow down your search, to be even more local, you can click on the PAGES FROM link. In this example on the PAGES FROM THE UK link. This means the search engine website will preference (find and list) UK, English, Based websites first (whenever possible) before foreign or global websites (THE WEB).

Fig 1.2 Click on the PAGES FROM THE UK link to display local results only

You can click between the global (THE WEB) and local (PAGES FROM THE UK) links at any time, without retyping your keywords (or keyphrases), because once you click on the SEARCH button again the search engine website will simply search for your keywords (or keyphrases) again in the relevant mode (global or local). Saying all this; There's not a lot of difference between global and local (i.e. the two databases should have stored more or less the same UK website links anyway). So only use the local setting (PAGES FROM THE UK) when you feel the global setting (THE WEB) is giving out too many irrelevant results, not narrow enough results and so on.

In this next example I will use the global setting to search for cheap flights to rome, in lowercase. Tip: Unless needed, always use lowercase because the bulk of website content (text, headings, etc) is in lowercase. Google can match exact phrases according to case-sensitivity.

Fig 1.3 Begin typing your keywords (or keyphrases) into the SEARCH Edit Box and then click on a listed suggestion to continue

As you type Google displays suggestions (above), based on its database of what other users have typed before, as a way of guessing what it is you want to search for; which can sometimes be hit and miss, but does sometimes save you from typing out a long keyphrase (sentence). In this example it is suggesting Rome, Rhodes, etc as my last word and has therefore correctly guessed Rome.

If you want to use one of its suggestions (i.e. cheap flights to rome) simply click on it in the Suggestions List (above) or use the right-arrow keyboard key to highlight and select the whole suggestion before pressing the ENTER keyboard key (or clicking on the SEARCH button). Either way, you will then be shown the search results for that keyphrase (i.e. cheap flights to rome) (Fig 1.5 below).

If you keep typing, past the initial suggestion, Google might offer an even longer suggestion. In this example, when I typed cheap flights to rome it continued by offering from London, from Manchester and so on (below). Again, if you want to use one of them just select them as described above.

Fig 1.4 Type your keywords (or keyphrases) into the SEARCH Edit Box and then press the ENTER keyboard key (or click on SEARCH)

Fig 1.5 The search results for - cheap flights to rome

Before going any further with examples I will now break down the results web page so that you know what you are looking at. The first thing to remember is that each results web page consists of website links and descriptions belonging to websites that have mentioned your keywords (or keyphrases). Whether or not you find the contents of those websites relevant is another story and part of Searching (Learning) The Internet. For example. You might come across what appears to be a fantastic website link, based mainly on its description, only to find the content of that website to be irrelevant after clicking on its website link.

Sponsored Links come in two flavours. Paid-For and Advertise-Per-Click. Meaning they are normally sponsored by commercial companies, organizations and so on. In this example the sponsored links with a magnolia (beige) background are Paid-For links (EasyJet and Budgetair). Magnolia background sponsored links are not always shown - It depends on Google and their advertisement policy regarding page views and so on.

The sponsored links to the right (white background) are Advertise-Per-Click links, which means when you click on one the Advertiser has to pay the search engine company some money. If the advertiser pays £1 per click for example they are hoping you will buy their product/service. Normal Links (see below), which are the main search result links in the center of the page, are listed by merit. The more popular the website the higher its listing.

If you know the company you want to deal with (i.e. EasyJet), and they are listed of course, you may prefer to click on their Paid-For sponsored link straight away to save valuable search time for example. On the other hand. If you have been looking through the Normal Links for a while without success (cannot find what you want), and the Paid-For sponsored links are irrelevant to you, you may want to consider the Advertise-Per-Click sponsored links. They can be a good alternative to your normal way of thinking/searching.

The blue Text Link, which is explained in the Internet Links Explained section, is the actual hypertext link (website address link) to the web page or website (homepage) mentioned in the Green Text (see below). In this example clicking on the blue Text Link would take you to the index (home) web page that lives inside the sub-sub-folder called rome, because the Green Text shows the hypertext link to be: www.cheapflights.co.uk/flights/rome/. Basically, you would be taken to the Rome main page. The search engine normally creates the title for the blue Text Link using the title of the actual web page. I.e. Cheap Flights to Rome, Italy - Rome flight deals.

Although the title of each blue Text Link (hypertext link) is important, it is more important to read the Description underneath the blue Text Link first. A description can tell you a little about the website's content and/or pick up on the keywords (or keyphrases) you entered into the SEARCH edit box. The description is normally the deciding factor on whether or not to click on the blue Text Link.

Although the description is created by the search engine website it is based on the content of the website in question. It is normally taken from the beginning of the index (home) web page, which means if the website author is aware of this they can manipulate their Introduction to benefit their description. In other words, they could make their website sound better than it really is. On the other hand, if they are unaware they will also be unaware that their website description is not as good as it could be. This is something else to take into consideration when deciding whether or not to click on the blue Text Link.

The reason I point out these considerations is because over time, when you have done a lot of searching, you begin to realise how much time is wasted clicking on blue Text Links because the description sounds too good to be true! For example. If you are looking for some Free Software (i.e. Free Audio Converter) the description might be Free Download, which you misinterpret as Free Software.

This could be because of the way the author wrote the description or because of the way the search engine website created the description (i.e. it twisted the wording....because it is a computer that does not fully understand English). Therefore, when you click on the blue Text Link you are disappointed to see the £ (or $) sign next to the advertised Free Software, because the software is actually Free-To-Download/Free-To-Try but not Free-To-Use (i.e. you must pay to use it without restrictions).

The green text, which is text only and not a hypertext link (web page/website address link), is showing you the web page or website (homepage) you will be taken to when you click on the blue Text Link (above). Or put another way, it is showing you the hypertext link (web page/website address link) behind the blue Text Link so that you do not click on a blue Text Link blindly.

The hypertext link itself, www.cheapflights.co.uk/flights/rome/, can be broken up into its relevant folders. For example. www.cheapflights.co.uk/ is the main folder of the website, flights is a sub-folder inside the main folder and rome is a sub-folder inside the flights sub-folder (or a sub-sub-folder of the main folder). Therefore the forward slash after rome is the same as rome/index.htm (or rome/index.html) - see the Web Terminology section for more information.

The Cached (pronounced: Cashed) link is very important and yet very unused, even though it can be a lifesaver. Imagine you have been searching for hours looking for a specific piece of information when up comes a blue Text Link with a Description that makes you say with frustration/impatience "At last!", because the description describes exactly what you are looking for. All you need to do is click on the blue Text Link.

Now imagine that when you click on that blue Text Link your web browser (i.e. Internet Explorer 9) produces an error message saying "Page Could Not Be Displayed", because the owner of the website is no longer paying for the website to be hosted (displayed). You would probably feel like crying! And after crying and cursing you would probably abandon the search! If only you knew about the Cached link before.

With the cached feature a search engine website stores a copy of a website for a limited period. That means, even if a website is no longer hosted (live on the internet), you can click on the CACHED link to see a copy of the web page you thought did not exist. So with the above scenario the CACHED link could be your lifesaver, especially if what you are looking for is rare information.

Act quickly though! If a website has been off the internet (unhosted) for a while the search engine website might of deleted its copy of that website. Or the copy might be too old. Meaning, the description may suggest "Next week we offer 50% discount" but that offer never happened because the website closed down before next week. Therefore the search engine website might only have a copy of this week's offer-intro web page and not next week's actual-offer web page.

The About 67,500,000 results (0.21 secs) part of the search means the search engine website is currently displaying blue Text Links 1 to 10 of about 67,500,000 blue Text Links. This is because the search engine website is set to display only 10 blue Text Links per results web page. So it divides the 67,500,000 blue Text Links into 10, which means there will be approximately 6,750,000 blue Text Links to go through!! Or put another, the search engine found 67,500,000 web pages relevant to your keywords (or keyphrase).

Fortunately the search engine website is quite clever and can detect similar web page content and therefore similar web page (blue text) links, which it leaves out of its search results. This gives a more accurate result of (unique) blue Text Links (web page links). In this example the 67,500,000 blue Text Links went right down to 450 (unique) blue Text Links, which meant only 45 results web pages to go through!!

Fig 1.6 The last results web page. Click on a Number or on the PREVIOUS button to go to another results page containing 10 blue Text Links

To get from one results web page to another simply click on one of the page numbers at the bottom of the current results web page. Or click on the PREVIOUS button, or NEXT button, if the search engine website has one.

Now that you know what you are looking at on the results web page the next thing to do, before you actually begin searching the internet, is to learn how to make your searches faster/better by using the correct keywords and keyphrases (sentences).

Before a search engine website begins to search its Database Of Web Pages for your keywords/keyphrases it separates them into individual keywords. For example. If your keyphrase is where can i buy red wine in france? the search engine website will separate that phrase into the following keywords before searching its Database Of Web Pages: where, can, i, buy, red, wine, in and france.

As soon as you click on the SEARCH button you might expect the search engine website to find websites (blue Text Links) with titles such as "Buy Red Wine in Bordeaux" and "If you turn left at the lights, past the post office....", because you have asked the question Where? If you asked a Human the same question you would expect the answers to be "In Bordeaux" and "Turn left at the lights, past the post office....look for a shop called Yoingco Wines". Unfortunately, a Search Engine website (Computer) does not think/answer in the same way as a Human and can only think in Broken English (or whatever your language is).

Fig 1.7 The results for where can i buy red wine in france?

The websites (blue Text Links) returned from the search keyphrase where can i buy red wine in france?, on page one of Google's results web page, are to do with Wine Making, Supermarkets Selling Wine, Wine Advice and so on. Yet none of them answered my question directly of Where? and more precisely Where In France? This is because the keyword where was not as strong or highly ranked as Buy and Wine. Hence why the results were to do with Wine Sellers and the buying of wine in general. Unfortunately this scenario happens frequently whereby you don't quite get what you were looking for.

Over time you begin to realize it pays to use two or more keyphrases and/or use broken English by cutting out the in-between keywords such as In, Of The, At and so on. If you look at the results for cheap flights to rome you will notice Google does not rate in very highly. And the same applies for where can i buy red wine in france?. where, in and ? are not highly rated.

A better keyphrase for the latter would be french wineries + french wine regions for example. You could even add French Wine Sellers just to see what results you get. As you can see from the results web page below, I was offered more precise links to do with Where In France? when I was more precise with my keyphrase. Meaning, I could now follow the blue Text Link titled French Wine Regions, French Wine Vineyards, Bordeaux Wineries for example to get a better idea of the Wine Regions.

Remember. Clicking on a blue Text Link is only the beginning of the trail. Like all searches, you have a start point (start looking) and an end point (found it)....hopefully!! Therefore, clicking on the French Wine Regions, French Wine Vineyards, Bordeaux Wineries link might only give me info on Wine Regions but then again it might give me one or more useful links to Free Wine Tasting and/or Wine Sellers.

I will not know until I start searching. In many scenarios you may end up searching, with different keywords/keyphrases, over a period of one day, one week, one month or whatever and find nothing or something. In other words. The information is usually out there but it may not be at your finger tips that quickly. Hard work, Time and Thought is needed.....and a clean mouth (for those days when you start cursing that useless ******* stupid search engine website!).

Fig 1.8 A different, more precise, way of Thinking the search - Click on a link to see where the search takes you.

Below is a list of some useful keywords to try. Most of them help me out on a weekly basis.

When searching for free software (i.e. free audio converters) you normally end up with results that contain the word FREE, either in the title of the blue Text Link or in the description, which the website owner has probably put there to entice you to click on their blue Text Link. When you visit their website though, by clicking on their blue Text Link, do not be surprised if you find the free software is in fact Free-To-Download and/or Free-To-Try software only. This happens all the time, to many people's frustration. It is becoming more and more difficult to find 100% Free-To-Use software these days, especially quality software.

Using the keyword FREEWARE at the beginning of your keyphrase can produce better search results. This is because in software terminology (jargon) the word Freeware means totally free-to-use, basically. If you see the word Shareware for example it means you must pay the software author(s) a Fee for using their software. Shareware software is normally free-to-use for a limited period of time, before you have to pay the Shareware Fee, and may also be limited in terms of its features/functionality.

Freeware on the other hand is totally free-to-use but may not be as good as its shareware equivalent, but then again some freeware is of a commercial quality. If you were looking for some shareware software then obviously you could put SHAREWARE, instead of Freeware, at the beginning of your search keyphrase. Another keyword to use is OPEN SOURCE which is better than freeware but is in many cases for the programmer. Example: freeware audio converters or open source audio converters.

Adding the keyword DOWNLOAD to the end of your keyphrase normally gives results whereby the blue Text Link has a direct hypertext link (web page address) to the software you are searching for. If you are searching for "windows media player" for example your search results will be about the many different versions of the Microsoft Media Player (i.e. Windows Media Player 9, Windows Media Player 10 and Windows Media Player 11), whereas searching for "windows media player 11" gives search results more specific to Windows Media Player 11. However, if you search for windows media player 11 download many of the search results will be based on the many different websites that contain a download link to Window Media Player 11.

You should always download Microsoft's software (i.e. Windows Media Player 11) from a Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) download link before entertaining another website's download link for that software. This is because the other websites might not be linking directly to the Microsoft web page (i.e. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/11/default.aspx) but instead linking to their own Microsoft web page (i.e. http://www.wmp.com/download/wmp.html) which they may not have permission to do, especially if they are storing the actual Microsoft software on their website.

Watch out for the bad people who put a bogus link on their web page, usually titled DOWNLOAD NOW, that make you think from their own software description that you will be downloading some original software (i.e. Windows Media Player 11) when in fact you could be downloading a Virus Infected file from their website.

ALWAYS USE THE ORIGINAL SOFTWARE AUTHOR'S WEBSITE WHENEVER POSSIBLE. If the original software author's website is mentioning, or giving, a software download link that is from another website you should be able to trust that other website. When a software author mentions, gives and/or recommends another website to download their software from it is called a Mirror Website or Alternative Download.

site: is a keyword used before a website's domain name (i.e. site:www.yoingco.com). Its search results give a blue Text Link for each web page that is stored on the website you are searching, which makes site: very useful for those occasions where you cannot remember where you saw something from.

For example. You can remember going to www.yoingco.com and reading an interesting article! about Security but cannot remember the name of the web page or article nor its hypertext link (web page address). Using the search results from site:www.yoingco.com you could then look at the hypertext links (Green Text), titles of the blue Text Links and/or Descriptions of those search results to jog your memory. Hopefully, you would then find the interesting article you was reading before. site: basically gives you an index of a website's web page links.

links: is a keyword used before a website's domain name (i.e. links: www.yoingco.com). Its search results give a blue Text Link for each website that is linking directly to the website you are searching. For example, links: www.yoingco.com shows you which websites have a direct link to www.yoingco.com. Although direct links can be found anywhere (i.e. mentioned by any website or individual) they are usually found in Forums (Questions and Answers websites) as recommended websites, disappointing websites, author advertisements and so on.

links: is very useful if you have had a bad experience with a company for example. You could find the links for that company, to see where else they advertise their bad deeds, and then inform each linked website of that bad company's ways. You could also use links: to investigate a company before buying something from them for example. If you read the comments on the forums, for example, where a company's website link is mentioned you can get an idea of that company's policies/reputation for example. Remember. People use forums a lot and will always write good/bad comments on them when a company is good/bad.

This one may seem obvious after a while but to a beginner who does not know..... When searching for a service or business in your area do not assume the search engine website knows where you are at the present time. It is a search engine not a sat-nav! Meaning, if you are looking for a Plumber in your area do not search for "plumbers" only. You must put your town/city into the keyphrase, such as plumbers in london or plumbers in westminster, london. "Plumbers" only will give you worldwide plumbers. If you want to be even more specific you can use the first part of your postcode. plumbers in W1. Or if you want to be general but not worldwide you can put plumbers in south london for example.

The - symbol can be used to eliminate certain searched keywords. For example. If you are looking for bass guitar and your search results always contain bass player and bass guitar courses as well you can use the - symbol to eliminate bass player and bass guitar courses results. Example: bass guitar -player -courses. Another use is when using names. If you are searching for washington dc but keep getting george washington in your results you can use: washington dc -george.

The + symbol separates keyphrases from one another. Example: red wine + wine retailers. This makes sure red wine and wine retailers are searched for, even though the search engine website will also split them into keywords and look for red, wine and retailers as well.

If you want to make sure that something is searched for in whole, use double quotes. Example: "red wine" or "red wine" + "wine retailers". Double quotes come in handy when you are looking for a phrase in a song lyric or a quote from a speech and so on. For example. Imagine you know the words to a song but cannot remember who sang it. You would search for the lyrics you remember (i.e. "ice ice baby") and get the result for the artist (i.e. vanilla ice). Another example is when searching for information.

Think how you would ask a question and then put the main part of it inside quotes. For example, your whole question: How do I set up Windows Messenger?. In your search you could leave out the basics "How do I" and just search for "set up Windows Messenger?". You leave out the basics to give your search a better chance.

Many people would also search for "How do I set up Windows Messenger" but by leaving out the basics the search engine will find results like "I could not set up Windows Messenger", "I successfully set up Windows Messenger", "did anyone manage to set up Windows Messenger?". You would then follow those leads (links) in order to see if/how Windows Messenger can be set up, easily by you the beginner for example.

The search engine normally finds these results by looking through forums (Q/A boards) - It quotes/extracts what other people have said/asked before you. So if it is a general question you have search for the core questioning only. In other words. You are trying to replicate what someone, like yourself, would ask if they had your problem. The opposite would be true if you wanted to be specific - You would include the basics, "How do I", in the search.

If you need to know the lyrics for a piece of music you can use the lyrics: keyword. Example: lyrics: ice ice baby.

If you need to know the meaning or definition of a word you can use the dictionary: keyword or definition: keyword (they are roughly the same). Example: dictionary: coke or definition: coke.

Sometimes you will use an innocent word like Uniform or Naked in your searches without realizing this invokes Adult Material websites to be listed amongst the search results. For example. You may be searching for a Uniform (i.e. Nurses Uniform) because you are a nurse but the search engine might think otherwise. The same goes for the BBC's cookery programme called Naked Chef, by Jamie Oliver. Searching for Naked Chef lists Jamie Oliver/Naked Chef for many search results (many web pages) but if you go past page 20 for example the search results tend to list more specific results relating to the words Naked and Chef.....Jamie Oliver is then abandoned!

If you want a more specific/narrow search you should look for a search engine's ADVANCED SEARCH or NARROW SEARCH option, if they have one, that is usually close by - Near the SEARCH button for example. In this example I am using Google's ADVANCED SEARCH link to narrow my search for Jobs In London. At the moment it has 111,000,000 search results.

Fig 1.9 Click on the ADVANCED SEARCH link to continue

To begin an advanced search first type a keyword/keyphrase into the SEARCH Edit Box as normal and then look below the SEARCH button for the link called ADVANCED SEARCH. When you have located it, click on it (Fig 1.9 above) to go to the advanced search web page.

Fig 1.10 The Advanced Search web page

The advanced search web page allows you to really strip down your search. In this example I have stated that I only want English results (all other languages will not be included in the advanced search). I have also stated that I would like to search through the www.gumtree.com website only. And finally. I have stated that I only want results from the last 24 Hours - This is good as it disregards older results (older job postings in this case).

If I wanted to I could of switched on SAFE SEARCH, which tries to avoid Adult Material content for example, but in this case I know www.gumtree.com to be okay. Therefore I clicked on the ADVANCED SEARCH button (above).

The advanced search has stripped down the search to specifically look at www.gumtree.com, in English, for the last 24 Hours. The results are down to 40,200 (Fig 1.11 below) compared to a search for the Past Week of 136,000 (Fig 1.12 below). This means by searching for 24 Hours I have narrowed the search. Obviously you would actually go to www.gumtree.com to look for a job. The example here is how to do an advanced search. If I did not put www.gumtree.com into the equation jobs in london would still be of use because it would of shown me different Job Agencies and/or different Job Websites, therefore I might of found a job agency or job website I never knew existed before.

Fig 1.11 The PAST 24 HOURS results

Fig 1.12 The PAST WEEK's results

At the end of the day, month or year! you should eventually find what you are looking for. "Momma's secret recipe" is no secret anymore. Those who say "If I tell you that I will be out of a job" are probably redundant anyway! because their knowledge is on the internet already. The internet covers a wealth of information and you know what they say.....Information IS Power.

Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation. As stated here by the Microsoft Corporation.

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