Growing up with Search Engines

When you are researching online, you need to be aware that anyone can publish a web page. This means that material you find on a web site is not necessarily accurate. This can be discouraging, but there are steps you can take to see whether or not the information is accurate.

Once you understand that not everything on the web is factual, you are ready to learn some techniques to help you sort through the thousands upon millions of sites located on the word wide web. Some well known search engines include - Google (http://www.google.com), Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com, MSN (http://www.live.com).

There are also some good search engines made specifically for kids. This means the results will be tailored to fit your needs. Two search engines designed just for kids are - KidsClick! (http://www.kidsclick.org) and Yahooligans (http://www.yahooligans.com). There are also specialized types of search engines. These sites specialise in specific fields such as math, science, medicine, and even newspaper articles.

Search Engine Tips
There are also tips you can take when typing your search request into a search engine. Here are some of the tips.

* If there's a specific phrase you're looking for, to get the best results put the phrase in quotation marks. For example, if you want to learn about graphics designer, type it into search engine as "graphics designer". If you do not your quotation marks, your results may include sites that are just about graphics, pictures.
* Include words 'or' and 'not' in your search. If you type 'book not fiction' into a search engine, then the list of results will exclude fiction books.
* Using an akterisk can also help when looking for web pages. Adding asterisks to the ends of words or partial words makes the search engine look for other words that have the same roots. For example, instead of looking for 'law' and 'lawyer' separately, you would type 'law*'. Anyway nowaday's search engines are smart enough to add the results of both 'law' and 'lawyer' without the use of * in search.
*You can use Google to search only within one specific website by entering the search terms you're looking for, followed by the word "site" and a colon followed by the domain name. For example, 'admission site:www.college.edu'.
*You can also include number range. For example 'DVD player $50- $100'.
*Use the Advanced Search option. This option allows you to search local, include date, language, domains, occurrences on the page, and likewise.