The Internet is loaded with tons of information. Sometimes, searching on the internet can be frustrating as with so many results for a particular search, it can be at times, become confusing and overwhelming.
Your search for a word or a phrase or a topic inside the search box of an internet search engine and as you tap enter, so many results pages with hundreds to thousands of possible websites will appear on your screen. But, when you click on the results shown, you can often get so much irrelevant information.
Many times you get your desired information in small bits on different pages and for this, you have to click for so many search results to compile up what you need. This can become so time-consuming and frustrating for the user. It can be due to the heavily loaded of information or misinformation on the internet but also can be more of your inability to find the exact thing you want to search.
In this article, we will discuss some of the ways to get specific results for what you search on the internet.
WHAT’S IN IT
Chose specific keywords:
When you type something in the search box to find content, that particular word or phrase is the keyword for which the search engine will show the result.
Keywords can be of single or two words like obesity, macronutrients, alkaline water, vegetarian diet, etc. or a phrase like ‘how to prevent cancer, ‘obesity in children or long-tail keywords like ‘adverse health effect of energy drinks on young people’, ‘lifestyle modifications for diabetes and high blood pressure management etc. You need to identify your keywords for which you want the search result. Keep it very specific to your search intent.
Say, for example, you want to buy a shoe online. If you simply type shoes or leather shoes then it will show very broad results including every kind of shoes. So, you need to narrow down your search result. Be more specific of what type of shoes, say, for example, black leather shoes for parties.
Try to avoid linking words:
Simplify your search terms by not using stop words or linking words such as if, but, of, to, in, on, the, etc. Many search engines include these words in their searches, thus using these kinds of vague words may clutter up your search results and also take a longer time to achieve the result.
So, it is better to avoid stop words unless you are searching for a specific title or a phrase that includes them.
For example: if you want to learn about tidal charts of the Indian Ocean. Enter only the keywords skipping linking words, say, tidal charts of the Indian Ocean.
Use quotation marks:
If you want to find an exact match for your search query, you should enclose the search term within quotation marks. Using a phrase inside the quotation marks, the search engine will search for the entire phrase as a single entity rather than all the individual words that are contained in the phrase.
This will avoid search engines from listing the pages that use each component words separately.
For example: If you want to search for a book with the title you can win, typing it within the quotation marks will ensure you will get the results for that particular book only.
Use Boolean Logical Operators: Boolean logical operators (AND, OR, NOT) are used to exclude or include the items in a search. The use of boolean search terms is one of the best ways to avoid the long list of links for a keyword.
These logics will guide search engines to analyze and present results based on your intent rather than simply finding every word in the keyword.
For example, if you are looking for information on summer fruits but do not want information on mango then you can type like this: summer fruits -mango. This will exclude the mango from its search making it easier to find the information that you are looking for.
Note: Put the minus sign directly before the word that you wish to exclude. Also, the way of entering logical operators may vary for different search engines.
Use various internet search engines:
Google may be the most powerful search engine created till now. but there are other search engines also which can provide better results for specific searches.
Explore other internet search engines also like Bing, Dogpile, Hotbot, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, etc. You should not restrict or limit yourself to any particular search engine. Keep exploring others also to get your desired result.
Conclusion
The internet is very vast. Information present here for any topic is abundant. Accessing the right information can sometimes be confusing and time-consuming. To get a precise result, you need to be very specific about your search.
You need to use your keywords in a specific and simplified way to get the desired information. You can also make use of quotation marks to narrow down searches to particular words and phrases. Also, using boolean operators will refine your search based on what you want to exclude or include.
Last but not least, you should broaden your search resources. Try using multiple internet search engines and not restricting yourself to the use of any particular one.
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