Finding things on the web

Although there is a lot of ‘junk’ out there on the internet, there is also limitless information on just about everything—it is just a matter of finding the needle in the haystack. But search engines like Google, Bing, etc., can actually be really helpful, if you know how to coax the information out of them without being presented with lots of irrelevant paid content (this is usually marked as Ad or Promoted).

First rule: be specific. If you are looking for information on purple-spotted doodads, don’t just put in ‘doodads’; put in ‘purple-spotted doodads.’

And then, depending on the results, add or remove words in your search. Perhaps you get more info on spotted than on purple; then remove the spotted from your search and try again. Or add the location or other pertinent details.

There are also a couple of useful tricks:

1. Put the most important word(s) in apostrophes; that means the result must have this word in it.

2. Add a – (minus) to eliminate results, e.g., ‘purple-spotted doodads -dingbats,’ will not show results that contain dingbats.

You can also narrow down your search by region (Australia, the world, the UK…), by time (last year, last month…), and more. Have a look at the top of the search page for these. You can also specifically search for images, videos, news, forums, and more. Again, check the top of the search page.

If you are looking for very specific information, you can even use a different, specialised search engine like Wolfram Alpha for scientific searches or Core for scholarly research, and there are many more.

Appliance not working as it should? Type the appliance and the symptoms into the search field, and chances are you will find the answer or even a how-to video.

I often get asked: ‘How do I do this thing on my phone?’ Unless I happen to know, my first step is to type the question into a search engine, and nine times out of ten, the answer is right there on the second or third site. Among the 5 billion people using the internet, there should be at least one who asked the same question and found a knowledgeable soul posting the answer.