Finding Information on the Web

As the number of web pages grew, people needed a way to access this information. Search engines were created to fulfill this need by indexing words on web pages and storing the information in a searchable database.

Search engines have become an important resource for people to locate information. U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Equity Research estimated in 2003 that users performed almost 550 million searches worldwide with 245 million of those from users in the United States. The purpose of searches varied, but 65% were for information and reference, 15% were commerce-related searches, and 20% were entertainment-related searches. US Bancorp projected the number of searches to grow 5-10% annually in the United States and about 20% internationally through 2010.

One search engine can not possibly index every web page currently available. Some of the best search engines currently available, as identified by SearchEngineWatch.com, include the following:

• Google
• Yahoo
• AskJeeves

Using Search Engines

Although you will learn more about search engines in Module 3, try these tips to improve you chances of success with search engines:

• Be specific. You will be searching very large databases, and the more specific you are, the more likely you are to locate useful information.
• Use +. The the plus symbol (+) to indicate words that MUST be in the results.
• Use -. Delete unwanted words from the results by indicating them with a hyphen (-) before it.

Tip: Learn more advanced searching techniques at SearchEngineWatch.