The world of web searches

A definition:

Search on the web is looking for available materials that fit any need of information through a search engine.

A shallow approximation:

Google searches on the full text of all the pages it has indexed. Search is two-pronged:

- Simple search: typing the name or names of what you want to know about, the key concepts.

Some facts:

1. An advise for the first attempt is searching the essential keywords (the main subject). If the results are not satisfactory, you can refine them with more meaningful words, although they are a little accessory. The more keywords, the more specific and the less results.

2. It tries to match your words with webpages words. It’s important to know it because it is necessary when formulating your query to adapt your words to the ones likely to appear.

Exercise:

Which is now the size of the population of your country? Try it also with any other country. Help yourself. For example: size population Japan.

How were the results?

If you tried in other language than English, did you have to repeat the search in another one?

Did Google return a single data?

Now, what if you try the entire question: which is the population size in…?

- Advanced search: using tools the search engine provides (operators) to make more complex searches. For example: restrict a document to a certain time and language.

Attention!

Not all the results ranked are relevant. It may be that the concept isn’t in the page returned.

Snippets can be any line of the text.

More information on Google tools: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/features.html