Surfing the Web

Surfing the Web

Example of searching for specific topics:

1. Open a web browser (examples: Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla).

2. Type www.yahoo.com into the Location/Address field on the screen.

3. Type California in the search field and click on the Search button.

4. How many web sites were found? _____________ (The number of web sites in the search result can be found at the top of the screen. Results 1-10 of about 115,000,000 for California.)

5. Find the Search field and type in California Flowers. Click on the Search button.

6. How many web sites were found? _____________

7. Find the Search field and type in California Poppy. Click on the Search button.

8. How many web sites were found? _____________

9. Were there fewer and fewer sites found with each search? ___________

Why or why not? __________________________________________________

How does the search work?

Most search engines and directories assume that you want all the words in the search field to be in the results. It is important to check the help section of search engines and directories for specific strategies.

Basic Rule:

Be as specific as you can be for the best search results.

What are Boolean Operators?

Boolean operators can be used to be more specific in searches.

California and flowers

Search Field Entry	Operator	Meaning of Operator
California and flowers	And	Both the words California and flowers will appear in all of the search results.
California or flowers	Or	Search results will have either California or flowers in the results. This will result in more web pages than the and operator.
California and not flowers	And Not	Search results will have California, but all sites with flowers will be omitted from the results.

Use Quotes

Quotation marks can be placed around phrases that should be used in the exact order and wording as you have typed them. (example: “dog walking” will look for the exact phrase, instead of documents that contain the words separately.

Places to Search