Searching can be a frustrating and confusing activity. When you get millions of web pages returned on your search, how do you narrow your search so that you get something you can use?

This page will show you ways to do advanced Internet searches.

Quotation marks
Place quotation marks around words or phrases will return that phrase. Instead of searching for
Canada goose
try the quotations marks
"Canada goose"
Instead of searching for Chicago White Sox
search for
"Chicago White Sox"

Include and Exclude (+ and -)
A + sign before a word (there is no space between + and the word, but there is a space between words) will return sites in the word must be in the site. i.e.      +goose +hunt
A - sign before a word (there is no space between - and the word, but there is a space between) will return sites in the word must not be in the site. i.e. +goose -hunt

Lower Case
Use lower case if you can in your queries. It will return more results in most search engines that using upper case (capital letters).

Wild Card
 An asteric* is a wild card. Searching for hunt*   will return sites with hunter, hunters, hunting, huntsman, etc.

Boolean Search
Some search engines use the idea of a  Boolean search. Boolean searches are very powerful and can be used in most all search engines. A Boolean search is a search that uses the terms "AND", "OR", "NOT" and occasionally a few other words.  Using these terms helps you to narrow, expand, or clarify your search to help you get better results. Use upper case letters for "AND", "OR", "NOT".

The three most common Boolean searches are as follows:

"AND" is used to refine a search to find documents containing every  word connected by  "AND".

"OR" is used to search for documents containing either word connected by "OR".

"AND NOT" is used to eliminate documents containing the word following the "AND NOT."

This describes an example of the “AND” search.
 Suppose you wanted to do a search on Canadian flags, or the relationship between them. You might start off with a query of  'Canada flag.' This, however, may be too vague. Try entering
Canada AND flag
Linking two words with AND will return only documents that contain BOTH words.

This describes an example of the “OR” search.
Suppose, now, that you were seeking information on Canada or flags, but not necessarily Canadian flags. When looking for two different subjects that do not have to be related, it is best to use OR. Such as
Canada OR flag
When a search engine searches for two words linked by 'OR,' it ranks the results. Nevertheless, were you to search farther down, you would find some documents that only contained one word or the other. Linking two words with OR will not only return documents that contain both words, but also documents that contain either word.

This describes an example of the “AND NOT” search.
Perhaps you want to make sure that no returned links have anything to do with Canada.
Try entering
flag AND NOT Canada
The links returned have little or nothing to do with Canada.
Linking two words with AND NOT will only return documents that contain the first word, and do not contain the second word.

Something More Advanced...
If you were doing a project on the flags of two different nations, and wished to gather the information on both simultaneously, you may have to use something more advanced.
Because there are probably few web pages dealing with both the flags of Canada and Argentina, you would probably want to search for pages about either the Canadian flag or the Argentinean flag. To do this, one would place the variables in parentheses, and leave the constant alone.  In this case, your query would look something like:
flag AND (Canada OR Argentina)
When you have two different subjects in mind with one common factor, you can search for both by putting the common factor first,  followed by the two variables in parentheses.
Example: flag AND (Canada OR Argentina)

Link Search
You can search for web pages that are linked to a site. For example, if your web page is http://www.coollessons.org/
type in
link:http://www.coollessons.org/
into a search engine and find other pages that have that as a link on it.  This works on http://www.altavista.com the best in my experience.

Image Search
The best image search engines are Google Image Search and Altavista Image Search.  The Amazing Picture Machine is a safe place to get images from. Be sure to check for copyright statements at the sites and follow them.

Other Hints
Most search engines have an Advanced Search option in which you can choose to search for
ANY of the words
All of the words
The exact phrase images, sounds, various sites (such as .org, .gov, etc.)

This site is for non-profit, educational use only. If you have any comments, questions or resources you would like to see added to these pages, contact Richard Levine,  Cool Lessons, Educational Technology Consultant, comments@coollessons.org