What is an Application

Teach Me

Today, there are over one million Web sites on the World Wide Web. So how do you find the site you want? Search engines are special Web sites that allow you to enter keywords that describe the site you want and then display a list of links to sites which match your criteria.

Some search engines (like Yahoo) also organize sites into categories and subcategories through a process known as indexing. Instead of entering keywords to search for Web sites, you start with a category and drill your way down to find the subcategory that matches your search criteria.

When entering keywords in a search engine, try to be as specific as possible. Use combinations of keywords to narrow your search criteria, but be careful not to use common words that are not specific to the information you want to find.

The easiest way to construct a good search query is to first think of a sentence that describes what you want to know: "My family wants to visit the White House in Washington DC." Next, take out all of the extraneous information in the sentence. Your keywords are now, "family", "visit", "White House", and "Washington DC." If you had just entered in the keywords "White House," you still would have received information about the White House, but by using more keywords, the search will be tailored to your specifications. Including the words "my" and "wants" would only increase the number of results, without adding any value.

	Most search engines offer an advanced search link to make it easy for you to enter specific criteria about your search. Methods and formats for advanced search techniques differ from site to site, so it is a good idea to review any help information before constructing your search query.
	Some search sites use special computer programs called spiders to continually search the Web, adding keywords and Web sites to their database. Search results are ranked (to help you find the site that best fits your keywords). This can be misleading, however, since some sites charge for a higher ranking.
	Popular Internet search engines include: Yahoo—www.yahoo.com Lycos—www.lycos.com Google—www.google.com

Show Me

To use an Internet search engine:

1. Type in your key word(s) and click the Search button.
   
   
2. Scroll the list (you may need to navigate to other pages) until you find the site you want.
   
   
3. Click the link to go to the site.