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Choosing the right key word for best search
1) Use the most unique word you can think of.
2) Make it a multi step process.
3) Narrow the field by searching just your previous results.
Boolean search using Boolean operators
Boolean operators or , and, not, near ( proximity ) used individually or in a combination to enhance the search results.
AND -Essentially filters out pages which doesn't contain both the keywords, search using "AND" Boolean operators yields more precise results than when not used.
OR-Use of "OR" Boolean operators yields pages which contain either of the keywords, thereby "OR" search retrieves many pages.
NOT-Essentially used in complex query where in pages containing a particular keyword need not be retrieved.
NEAR- (Universities NEAR/25 Graduate) this results in searching for Universities near Graduate to find the two terms within 25 words of each other. < AltaVista and Lycos supports this operator>
Creating complex queries All most all search engine also allow you create more complex queries by grouping and, or ,not & near statements using parenthesis ((College or Institute ) and ( Engineering and Computer Science)) - results in searching for web pages of engineering colleges or institutes offering computer science degree.
Using Wildcards Searching with wildcards or truncation as it is sometimes called means using an asterisk to indicate that you want to look for variations on a particular word like elect* to find election, electable, electioneer, electorate, electoral It's usually a good idea to use a wildcard along with at least one another unique keyword ( Lok sabha NEAR elect* ) otherwise your search may take long and return too many hits.
Dealing with stop words Stop words are words that search engines ignore because they are reserved for special purpose This list varies from search engine to another but usually includes words like the ,to ,with, from, for ,of, that and all Boolean operators. If any such word is important in identifying data you can ensure that it won' t be ignored by setting it off in double quote "OR".
