The Internet is a hub of different computers (or servers) connected through a network that allows its users to transfer, upload and download information from almost anywhere across the world. Individuals are able to create websites that provide a service or simply to display information for public viewing. A search engine allows us to look for these sites according to what they are related to.
So, for example, if you are looking to find a site that will assist you in your home and gardening projects, a search engine would display the links to various sites that offer this type of information. Because websites are normally added to a database, the search engine can look for keywords from these sites to have an idea of the topics and information that the site offers, so when you search, they are able display the sites on a list.
How to find the best search engine for your needs
In order to use the Internet, you must have an active Internet connection — you can either contact an Internet service provider to have it installed in your home, connect from a friend’s home that has the Internet access or it from a public venue such as a library or cyber café somewhere that offers a public wireless connection.
Your computer should be equipped with a pre-installed web browser whether Internet Explorer or Safari depending on whether you are using a PC or Mac.
If you find that you don’t have either one of these or you want to use a different web browser, you can search for and download a different one such as Opera, Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox; these will work on all the operating systems.
While Google is undoubtedly the most-used search engine, there are others such as Yahoo, Bing, answers.com, askgeeves.com, lycos.com, altavista.com, torrentz.com, singing fish.com and many more.
Some websites may be recommended more than some depending on the topic you are searching on. For example, if you are seeking certain multimedia such as movies and movies you may want to use singingfish.com or torrentz.com.
Go to the URL address bar, type in the name of the search engine you want to access and press enter on your keyboard to connect.
Access the search engine by going to the URL address bar, type in the name and press enter on your keyboard. When the search engine opens, type in your topic choice into the search bar and press enter on the keyboard again, use the mouse and click “OK”.
After you press enter with the topic typed in, a list will appear showing the various websites related to your search word. It normally shows a sentence or two on the keywords of the topic you are looking for. Then you can select any number of sites to start gathering your information.
The do’s and don’ts
Type in the key words in the search bar
To make sure you are on the right path to collecting solid and valid information, here are a few quick cross checks:
- When you are typing in the search keywords, try to be as specific as possible. Search engines are very sensitive to key words, so it will present articles containing one or more of the words (on the topic) in different articles by themselves.
- Be careful about spellings in the search key.
- Find out how long the site has been around or if the site is trusted enough to provide the particular type of information.
- Maybe the site is related to a trusted company that you already know about and have purchased a product from, you have done business or gained information from outside of the internet.
- Another way to validate the information is to read through a number of sites to see how much of them correspond on the same level to decipher what is real from what may be false until you can arrived at a conclusion to the topic and its relevance to you.
- It is normally recommended that you use different sites to source the information on the topic you are searching for. The more websites support the information, the more valid the information will more likely be.
- Finally, search engines should never be used to seek information on anything that could be used with the intention of causing harm or damage to an individual.
