Section 1.  Searching the Internet with Search Engines

Where do you begin to find information on the Internet?   

The first place I go when I want to search for information is to a "search engine."  A search engine is similar to telephone directory.  It doesn't actually contain the information you're looking for, but points you to the website where the information is located.  

You simply go to a search engine and type in a few words or phrases that you're looking for.  The search engine then points you to pages that might be related to your search.

Let's choose a topic for a sample search and you can try a search engine yourself.  For this example, let's look for information on the Reformation, a period of church history back in the 1500's. 

One of the largest search engines on the web is called Alta Vista.  To go to Alta Vista, you can click on this link: altavista.com. (Remember, use your BACK and FORWARD buttons to get back to this window).

Let's do a simple search on our topic.  In the Alta Vista search box simply enter the word reformation.  Try it now and see what kind of pages show up.

On the day I wrote this, Alta Vista listed about 97,000 pages that had the word reformation somewhere on them.  This doesn't mean you have to look at 97,000 pages.  Usually, you'll find several documents in the first 10-20 matches that will be the most helpful.  Search engines are very sophisticated in the way the "rank" web pages.  For instance, a document with 30 occurrences of the word reformation will rank higher than a document with only 1 occurrence of the word.  Search engines use this and many other techniques to bring the closest matches to the top.

Scroll down the page in Alta Vista to see the first 10 or so listings.  If one looks interesting to you, click on the highlighted link, and you'll be taken to that web page, on a computer somewhere else in the world, perhaps Germany, Australia or Maine.  If, after you click on that link, you want to look through some other links, just click your BACK button to go back to Alta Vista and scroll through the rest of the listings.

You've now done a simple search on a search engine.  Let me give you some tips that will help you quickly narrow or broaden your search.