You can find information in most. How to find the information you need on the Internet

Logos of the largest search engines

Every day we look for various information on the Internet, be it a description of our favorite movie or a report by a prominent scientist. We have long been accustomed to the design of the main pages of the largest search engines - Google and Yandex and visit them dozens of times a day.

Have you often thought about information search rules? I don’t think often (I haven’t thought about it much myself), but I noticed that sometimes searching for the information I need takes quite a bit. long time. In this article I will try to talk about ways to reduce search time and increase its effectiveness.

Rules for searching information in search engines

How to reduce search time and improve search results, general recommendations:

• Queries should be simple. If you are looking for a business, simply enter its name, or at least the part of the name that you remember for sure. If you are looking for a specific concept, place or product, start with its title or name. If you are looking for a pizzeria, just enter the word "pizzeria" and the name of your city or postal code. Most queries don't require rare operators or sophisticated syntax. The simpler the better.
• Think about what words are present on the page you are looking for. A search engine is not a person. This is a program that compares the words you type and the words that are on web pages. Use words that are most likely to appear on the page you are looking for. For example, instead of [ I have a headache ] enter [ headache ], because this is the term that will be used on the page dedicated to medicine. Request [in which country are bats considered a good omen? ] understandable to a person, but the document containing the answer may not contain these words. Enter better [bats are considered a good omen in] or even [bats are a good omen], since these words are most likely present on desired page.
• Describe what you need using as few words as possible. Each word in the query serves to narrow and refine the search area. Since all words are used, each additional word limits the range of results. If you enter too many restrictions, you may miss useful information. Start your search with a few keywords. Even if you don't find what you're looking for, review the results you find and you'll know what additional words you should include in your next query to get more relevant results. For example, a simple request [weather Minsk] will give best results than a longer query [weather forecast for Minsk Belarus].
• Choose more informative words. The more descriptive a word is used, the more likely the results are to be relevant. Words like “document,” “website,” “company,” or “information” are usually unnecessary. However, remember that even if you use the right word, but most people rarely use it, the word may not end up on the right page. For example, request [popular ringtones] more informative and specific than [popular ringtones].

Search engine developers have developed a special search query language (a language of unique rules for searching for information), which makes it easier and faster to search for information on the Internet. Below I will give examples of using the expression of this “language”.

Which search engine to use: Google or Yandex?

When I was inexperienced, I only used one search engine to search. But experience has shown that this approach is ineffective, because each search engine has its own unique patented search algorithm and, accordingly, its own pros and cons. It is much more important to understand for which types of search queries use one or another search engine. Exists following types search queries:

• Navigation queries– these are queries whose purpose is to find a specific places on the Internet. For example, a company website or the website of a recently visited forum, searching for a link to a blog, etc.
• Information requests– such queries are entered if they want to receive some intelligence or find the one you need information on the Internet. For example, searching for history information Ancient Rome or searching for results of a football match, etc.
• Transactional requests- this is a type of request that is entered in order to perform some action on the Internet - a transaction (buy, download, upload, subscribe, etc.)
• Fuzzy queries– these are general, specific queries that, as a rule, enter inexperienced users. For example, “mobile phone”, “music”, “flowers”, etc.

Features of the Google search engine

This search engine is best used for navigation queries or searching for a site address. The algorithm of this search engine pays special attention to the type domain name and link. I have seen several times how, when entering a fuzzy query, the TOP 10 results showed sites that had no content at all. We should also not forget that Google is an international search engine, i.e. the best solution for searching information in a foreign language.

Features of the Yandex search system

The domestic search engine is excellent for searching information on the Internet for information queries. It indexes Runet very well, its algorithm has already been refined many times, and it is also optimized for searching information in Russian. It is noteworthy that Yandex also received the status of an international search engine; this happened on May 19, 2010 ().

Yandex search query language

Google Search Language

Results

In this article I reviewed information search rules, i.e. ways to reduce time spent searching various information on the Internet. Absolutely all search engines were not considered here, but if you follow the rules described above, you can save a lot of your personal time. So, basic rules for searching information on the Internet:

1. Do not enter too long search terms - this reduces the search area and you may miss important information.
2. Use informative words, try to avoid common phrases and rarely used synonyms
3. Use different search engines to various types search queries
4. Use specially designed

When we talk about “searching” or “research” these days, few people mean spending hours in the library looking for the right book or periodical. And we are hardly even talking about online access to the scientific databases of schools or universities. The word “research” in everyday culture most often includes one meaning: open a browser, write keywords in the search bar and “surf” the Internet until you find the information you need.

However, in order to achieve a result in the “until you find the necessary information” stage, a problem may arise - sometimes the search is delayed, and the information you are looking for is definitely not found. To quickly find the necessary data and not waste time checking “wrong” sites, you can use small tricks.

So, trick number 1: Use different search engines

Despite the fact that “search mastodons” (such as Google, Yandex, Yahoo!, etc.) often offer similar results, it is still worth making a request not only on one site. The difference of a few links can be critical if it is exactly what you need.

If you are an ardent fan of one of the systems, then you can find out if it has highly specialized search tools (Google, for example, has Google Scholar, which allows you to search exclusively in online repositories of universities and academic publishing houses).

Trick number 2: Dig deeper

How many of you closed the search engine after quickly scanning the first page of results? So, this is fundamentally wrong! There is a certainty in our heads that the best and most accurate results are on the first (at least on the second) pages. This is why corporations pay a lot of money to get on the first pages of searches. Don't be fooled - check it out more pages, then you may come across less paid, but more interesting and necessary sites.

Trick number 3: Clarity

You must have a good understanding of what exactly you are looking for before you begin the search itself. Sounds like a message from Captain Obvious? However, this is very important point: very often users hope that the Internet will read their thoughts and provide the necessary material at the very first word. In fact, it turns out that you need to “promote” your topic from the very basics - defining keywords.

Search engines have access to a huge amount of information, and if you try a little, you can get from them “just” the information we need (instead of a bunch of “left” pages).

Trick number 4: Use modifiers

Not everyone knows, but our common punctuation marks (quotes, ellipsis, dash, hyphen-minus, etc.) and country encodings are very helpful in narrowing down search results and making them as relevant as possible.

• Use quotes, if you need a specific phrase or phrase, then the search engine will understand that the words must be searched nearby.
• When you need to find material that contains some words but excludes others, use a dash (or minus). It looks like this: "Newton - apple." A tricky task for a search engine is to find everything about Newton that does not contain any mention of apples.
• Enter in the search bar the name of the site you want to search on. To search only on a specific site, use the word site (site), you can do it like this: if you are looking for news about Khan Academy on the site newtonew.. And here it is.
• If you need to find information contained in a certain numerical interval, then you can use dots to indicate exactly what interval is required: for the query “Unified State Exam 2010..2014” the search engine will respond with articles mentioning all years between 2010 and 2014 and the word “ Unified State Examination".
• Use a country-encoded search engine to get search results on national sites. For example, Google Korea looks like this: www.google.co.kr.

Trick number 5: Be vigilant and critical

For those who doubt, we authoritatively state: “Not everything written on the Internet is worth believing.” Alas, this is true. So when you read an article or download material from a previously unvisited page, look around: “Is this a site with primary data? Is the information current, relevant and reliable? Is the article you're reading full of facts, but doesn't cite the research that produced them? Who wrote the article? Are they trying to sell you something?

Trick number 6: Quoting and quoting again

As they say, repetition is the mother of learning. If you have used materials, statements and articles from some source, then refer to it later in your work. You don’t want someone else to take your thoughts and ideas and then call them their own? So don't do this to others.

Let's take advantage of the last point and say thank you to the Edudemic website and its author Katie Lepi for an excellent set of tips on how to make the process of searching the Internet easier, faster and more enjoyable!

Even if your field of activity is not directly related to search and processing, you still cannot do without them in everyday life. The simplest things at first glance - say, selecting the necessary household appliances or searching for a rare clip of your favorite artist - can be accompanied by serious difficulties. It seems like I wrote everything correctly in the search bar, but no, it’s not there! Meanwhile, there are simple techniques that allow you to search for the necessary information on the Internet faster and more efficiently. And even if you don’t start using all the ones we’ll talk about today, it will still be much easier and easier for you to surf the Internet - and that’s what searching for information on the World Wide Web is called.

Compose your search queries correctly

This is the most important and most effective technique when searching for information on the Internet. A search for one word will return several million results, a search for two will yield an order of magnitude less, and a query of, say, four or six words will yield only a few thousand, or even less. In addition, the more accurate and competent the query is, the higher the likelihood that the desired result will appear on the first page. In addition, do not forget that search engines cannot always correct spelling errors in queries, and some do not even consider them to be errors (for example, they do not see the difference between -tsya and -tsya, which can be fundamental for a search). And don't ignore capital letters if you don't want to deal with extra results. For example, a query for the word “swan” will return results with both information about the bird and data about the late General Alexander Lebed, and “Swan” will mainly be about the general, although there will also be references to the bird if the word was at the beginning of the sentence.

Use at least two search engines

Different search engines have several different ways indexing pages. Therefore, as a rule, even the simplest search queries in different systems bring different results. Firstly, what one search engine did not notice may be noticed by another - and vice versa. Secondly, some results in one system will be on page ten or twentieth, while in another they will be in the top five. In addition, different search engines react differently to the frequency of words in a query, the presence or absence capital letters, on the location of query words within one document and even one sentence.

Specify the geography of requests

For residents of Moscow, this technique is less relevant than for all other Russians. The fact is that search engines, even if they take into account the location of the computer from which the search query is entered, nevertheless, first of all index the pages with the largest number of hits. And such pages, as a rule, are associated with Moscow, where a significant number of Internet users are concentrated, who are also highly active. So don't rely on the search engine to remember where you live. It’s better to simply add a mention of your city or region to your search query.

However, Muscovites should not neglect this technique. The capital is large; the necessary services can be provided anywhere. It’s not a great pleasure to click on search results over and over again and find out that the company is located three hours away from your home or office. But even a simple mention of the area or the nearest metro station will allow those companies that are closest to be brought to the top of the results.

Specify the subject area of ​​your queries

In principle, this is the same rule that applies to geography. The banal word “tire” will produce the vast majority of results that have nothing to do with medicine. And if the user doesn’t even have a car, he will have to take the first test tomorrow medical care? This is where it’s worth remembering that simply adding the word “medicine” to the word “tire” will already help exclude most automobile references from the results and bring to the first pages exactly the tires that are applied in case of fractures.

The same applies to any other subject areas. As a rule, search engines have a built-in menu that allows you to specify what the user is looking for: pictures, videos, dictionary entries, word translation, news materials based on your request, and so on. But the user should not be lazy either: not a single search engine will substitute the word “medical” for the word “tire”.

Use advanced search

This advice directly follows from the previous two, since it allows you not to come up with clarifying words in your queries yourself, but to use a structure that has already been developed for searching in this particular system. It should not be neglected: search service programmers know much better than most, even advanced users, what algorithms their products use and how exactly they search. Therefore, when entering the same “tires” into a search engine, try to structure your query in more detail using an advanced search.

View at least the first ten pages of results

Why should you follow this rule? Because on the first pages there will be not only the most relevant, that is, the most accurately corresponding to the request, results. There will be results found on the most popular pages. And these, as a rule, are pages and portals that contain information that is not the most accurate, but best corresponds to popular search queries. A simple example: search results for a single word will in most cases begin with a link to the corresponding Wikipedia article. And although information from the free encyclopedia is now much more trustworthy than it was five to seven years ago, you should not limit yourself to it. And, let's say, a link to scientific work, which describes in detail exactly what the user is looking for, will appear on the twelfth or twenty-fifth page - simply because this scientific portal is accessed tens or hundreds of times less often than Wikipedia.

Use the "Search in Found" function

This technique also allows you to narrow the search area by specifying which tires, for example, the user is looking for. Searching what you found will help you quickly eliminate the vast majority of results from related or completely unrelated areas or from other geographical regions. You just need to remember that all the same rules listed above apply to searching in what is found. In addition, search in the found allows you to structure your search results taking into account the links already received and the information found, which increases the likelihood of finding the one and only required link.

Reframe your queries based on the results you've already received.

Even a quick glance at the search results obtained will usually show that the subject or concept you are interested in different people search in different ways. Don't neglect their experience! The easiest way is to pay attention to the offered search engine query options when you just enter them into search bar. Even if you use at least five of these “automatic” options in succession, this will already make the search more efficient. And if you add your own options to the automatic ones, clarifying and correcting the initial request, then even more so.

Use synonyms, search by official names and key phrases

A technique reminiscent of searching what was found, but allowing you to refine the search rather than narrow it. Let's say a user is looking for information about an item that is better known by its colloquial name. Then, having received information about how the search object is actually called officially, and not colloquially, you can set a new, more accurate search query. By the way, the rule also applies in the other direction: it often turns out that much more information can be found about an object by entering its “folk” name or nickname into the search bar, information about which was found as a result of the first one.

Use search operators

It is no coincidence that this advice comes last: it is more suitable for advanced users and those who did well in the exact sciences at school. So we won't even go deeper into detailed description all search operators. Let’s just say that search operators are special characters like “+”, “-”, “~”, “|” and so on, inserted into the request text. Their use allows you to include and exclude specific words from a phrase from a search, ensure that the search engine searches for a phrase within one sentence or one document, and so on. And if the reader is interested in learning more about this, he can enter the phrase “search operators” into the search bar, and then use all the above tips. The result is guaranteed!

Most of the time a user spends on the Internet is spent searching for information that interests him. At the same time, there are many ways to obtain this data - you can look into an online encyclopedia and try to find the answer there, you can subscribe to a newsletter on a topic of interest and carefully study incoming correspondence, or you can consult with competent people on the forum by asking them a question. But the most universal method Find something on the Internet - use one of the many search engines. Services for searching millions and millions of websites are, perhaps, the fundamental link of the World Wide Web. Without Google, Yahoo, Yandex and many other search engines familiar today, a user’s stay on the Internet would be more like a blind man walking through the forest. The importance of search engines for working on the Internet can hardly be overestimated - for many users, start pages the addresses of search engines are indicated, and it is from them that for many people an endless journey through various network resources begins. However, the effectiveness of Internet excavations is different for everyone - one person finds information instantly, another takes a lot of time, and a third may not find anything useful for himself at all. What is the reason? The answer is simple: searching on the Internet is similar to fishing - you need to know where to fish and what to fish for, i.e. where to look and how to look. In today's article we will talk about the best way to search on the Internet, and tell you what search engines exist for this, besides those that are “on everyone’s lips.”

However, we will start with those systems that you know. If a user knows the address of a search engine, this does not mean that he knows how to use it. Let's check how well you understand search query technology. How accurate the results you will get, first of all, depends on how skillfully you formed the search query. For example, if you are looking for information to write course work, there is no need to introduce its topic verbatim, especially if the work has a narrow specialization. You will find much more valuable information if you try to select keywords, that is, those words that will definitely appear in your work. If you are looking for a lost manual for a car radio, then by entering the model number, you will probably get a huge number of sites offering to purchase it. To weed out unnecessary links, you can use the search function in the found or exclude some words from the search. In almost every search engine you will find an advanced search function. This is another one good way weed out unnecessary results. Such functions may include searching for pages that have been recently updated, searching for pages only in a certain language, or on sites located in the domain zone you specify. The time spent searching can be significantly saved if you know and use the query language syntax. Each search engine has its own characteristics. For example, when you are looking for something on Yandex, it would be a good idea to use the following techniques:

• To search for words that should appear on the page in one sentence, put the & symbol between them
• To exclude a specific word from search results, add it to your query by prefixing it with ~~
• To find pages that contain at least one of the words specified in the search query, separate them with |
• To search for a word in the specified form, put an exclamation mark in front of it

• To search for information on a specific site (and only on it), enter its address in the query field, preceded by the word site and a colon (for example, site:http://www.site)
• To search for a phrase that should appear on the page in its entirety, put it in quotation marks
• To exclude pages that contain a specific word from search results, add it to your query by preceding it with a minus sign

FindSounds.com - searches for sounds

The FindSounds sound effects database can be used in a variety of areas - from the development of computer games and other applications, to the creation of presentations and all kinds of clips. The search engine can be useful, for example, for those who create interactive web graphics and want to add variety to the site by accompanying the clicking of page navigation elements with different sounds.

Gnod.net - will select music, books and films to suit your tastes

Alldll.net - finds library files

It is very simple to correct the situation - just find the missing file on the Internet, download it and copy it to the directory of the program that refuses to start, or to the folder ..WINDOWSsystem32... You can find and download the missing file easily and quickly using of this service. The resource www.alldll.net is search database data on the most popular dll libraries. The files are sorted alphabetically and there is a search function. You can search for the file you are looking for even if you only know the approximate name of the library. It is enough to start entering text in the request field, and at the bottom of the page a huge list of files will appear that begin with the letters that were typed.

Medpoisk.ru - search for medical information

Taggalaxy.de - search for images and photos

After the keyword query is completed, a system of the sun and planets that revolve around the star will appear on the screen. Each celestial body has its own purpose and is “signed” with a word. At the center of the galaxy is the sun, key query, all other bodies are auxiliary words, clarifications. If you click on the sun, this object will come closer, and photographs will fly towards it from all sides and surround it, the content of which is determined by the search query. This 3D model You can rotate photographs in virtual space, examining them in detail and searching for the image of interest. After this, just click on the picture to enlarge it in size, and then you can better examine it and read the description.

While working with this search engine, you can use the scrolling function - it allows you to zoom in or out of three-dimensional planets. The remaining planets that are visible in the search engine interface after the request are auxiliary words that allow you to clarify the request. For example, if you enter “Sky” into the search field, then among the qualifying words-planets there will be the words “clouds”, “sunset”, “blue” and other tags of similar meaning that users specified when using the Flickr.com service. The disadvantage of the search engine is that taggalaxy.de does not support the Russian language, so queries can only be entered in Latin.

Nigma.ru - filters results from other search engines

Nigma contains own base resources, but in addition to this, it allows you to search immediately across all the most popular search engines, including Google, MSN, Yandex, Rambler, AltaVista, Yahoo and Aport. The mechanism for selecting results in this search engine differs from most accepted methods of site discovery. The fact is that the engine of this service uses clustering of results. What does this mean? Imagine that you decide to find out for yourself what “rendering” is. Having compared the results in different search engines, the Nigma.ru engine selected the most likely results and, at the same time, on the left side of the window, next to the list of search results, displayed the so-called clusters - “visualization”, “creation”, “system”, “rendering”, "process", "studio max", " computer graphics" and other words and phrases. These clusters represent thematic group found documents. This way, you can quickly narrow your search or specify your search query. In Nigma.ru, you can also use categories to limit the area from which results will be selected - for example, perform a search only taking into account music resources, or display results only for images. Another opportunity of this service may be of interest to schoolchildren and students. Nigma.ru offers the services Nigma-mathematics and Nigma-chemistry. The first one is for quick solution simple equations and various arithmetic operations, the second allows you to work with formulas of chemical reactions. The search service recognizes more than a thousand physical, mathematical constants and units of measurement, allowing you to quickly convert from one dimension to another.

Searchme.com - search engine with preview

The implementation of this idea was simply magnificent - the created search engine has a beautiful animated three-dimensional interface and shows search results in the form of an animated ribbon of thumbnails, thumbnail screenshots of web pages, including keyword search. The tape with the results, like a film with old negatives, can be scrolled in the browser window using a special slider located under the string of images. The sketches are loaded instantly, so there are no delays in drawing the results. It is especially convenient to work with search results in full screen mode- then it is quite possible to make out even the text of the articles on the sketches of the results. To appreciate the convenience of this system, just try browsing news resources. Photos for the main news on title page web publications will immediately make it clear which news on this resource is considered the most important.

The solution is a specialized torrent search engine. There are a lot of sites on the Internet that search for torrent resources. However, torrent-finder.com has an undeniable advantage over other search engines - this service allows you to search for files on a huge number of trackers simultaneously.

Many users of the Google search engine, resorting to its help, notice that it is often not always possible to find the information you need the first time. Perhaps users believe that these are shortcomings of the search engine itself, but this is not always the case. Sometimes, in order to find very specific information, you need to resort to the help of special tools (operators) of a given search engine.

How to search on Google correctly?

To begin with, do not forget that Google’s search algorithm is case insensitive; in other words, if you enter “Russia” or “Russia” into the query, the search result will not change. However, this search engine is very sensitive to the algorithm. search operators, it is for this reason that search results for the queries “Windows OR Linux” and “Windows or Linux” may differ radically.

The next thing to consider is that Google search engine does not take into account many words - connectives, for example, such as “and”, “a”, “but” and the like. For this reason the result search results does not depend in any way on their use.

Thirdly, in order to search correctly in this search engine, you should remember the presence certain operators(symbols or words that clarify the search) and learn how to use them.

Such operators are used not only by Google, but also by other search engines, for example, Yandex.

So, Google operators who will help you find the information you need:

«+» - it is better to use when you need to find documents containing more than two words, for example, “SEO + tools”.

«-» - should be used to exclude from issuing documents containing any word, for example, “non-alcoholic drinks.” In this case, the search engine will only find alcoholic drinks.

"OR"- needed to search for documents containing one of several words, for example, “woman OR girl”.

«“”» - needed in order to find documents that contain a certain phrase in the same form in which it is used as search query, for example “buy TV Tver”

«~» - necessary to search for synonyms of words that are specified in the query, for example, “fashion ~ smartphones”.

«..» - is used if it is necessary to find documents that contain numerical values ​​in specified intervals, for example “300...500 rubles per day.”

There are also more popular Google operators For correct search, among which the average user of this search engine may need the following.

"daterange:"- needed to search for documents created in a certain period of time, for example, “fire in Kyiv daterange:20092011-21102010”.

"filetype:"- used when searching for links to a document of a certain type, for example, “Solzhenitsyn’s autobiography filetype:rtf”.

"site:"- needed in order to find all pages of the site you need or pages of the site containing a specific word, for example, “site:dirfreesoft.ru antivirus”.

"phonebook:"- a very necessary operator who is looking for telephone numbers By specified parameters, for example, “phonebook: hotels Omsk”.

It turns out it's not that hard to search Google correctly if you know how.

How to search correctly in Yandex?

In fact, not all Yandex users know the answer to this seemingly stupid question. The reason lies in the fact that the largest number of users of Internet resources do not fully use the opportunities search programs, just for this reason certain cases Many search engine users may encounter some obstacles and difficulties when searching necessary information.

Well, how to correctly use the Yandex search engine - the most popular search engine in the Russian-language segment of the World Wide Web?

1. If you need to find a specific, specifically formulated phrase. It is most convenient to use the “ ” operator to search for such phrases; in other words, in order to find a web document in which the phrase you need is located, it should be typed in quotation marks. For example, "Which files can be excluded from virus scanning?"

2. If you need to find a quote, but you have forgotten some words or simply don’t know. There is no difficulty in this. In this case, you should enclose the entire phrase in quotation marks, and put the “*” sign in place of the forgotten words. For example, “I’m coming to you * what more.”

3. If you need to generate results based on several words or phrases at the same time. For such an operation, the | operator should be used; it should be used after each searched word or phrase. For example, raspberries | strawberries | strawberry.

4. If you have to find several words that are in one sentence. When performing this task, you need to use the & operator, it must be placed between the search words. For example, the monument to Mayakovsky & Samara.

5. If you need to find a document that contains a particular word. To do this, use the + operator. It should be used before the search words and should not be separated by a space. The request may also contain clarifying words or phrases. For example, a monument to Chapaev + a square.

6. If you need to exclude documents that contain any specific word from your search. Then you need to use the operator -. It is placed before the words that need to be excluded and is not separated by a space. For example, buy a modern laptop.

7. If you need to find information only from a specific site. In this case, the site operator will help. It is used simultaneously with a colon and is placed immediately before the name of the site. For example, PDF site:dirfreesoft.ru

8. If you need to find documents of one type or another. When searching for such files, you should use the mine operator. It is also used with a colon. For example, instructions for HTS mine:doc.

9. If you need to find information in a specific language. For this task, you need to use the lang operator, after which you should put a colon and specify the selected language for the documents you are looking for. For example, Angels and Demons lang:ru.