1. WHAT CAN I DO ?
Because the WWW is the youngest service on the Internet, there was no possibility to search for information. Soon some people began collecting addresses of homepages and presented them on the WWW. As the WWW grew, more addresses of pages had to be stored. So this collection of addresses was brought into order and the page's addresses were grouped into categories. Soon there were too much addresses, so that a user could find the desired information easily. This was the birth of the search engines. The pages addresses were stored into large databases and forms were created, where the user could enter keywords for the desired Information. To use these search facilities you need to know how to use the World Wide Web. If you haven't done so, please read the World Wide Web section.
2. WHERE CAN I CONNECT ?
For a list of search engines you can use to perform your search, have a look at the search engines section. You can use most search engines directly from there. Type in your search queries and press the search button.
3. HOW DO I WORK WITH SEARCH ENGINES ?
Most search engines offer to different kinds of search. A quick start and a search with options. When you log on to a search engine, most of the time you will see the quick start form. This form has a single edit field and a button labeled search. Simply type in one ore more keywords of what you'd like to find (separated by a blank) and press the search Lycos! button. Here is an example of how this might look like. This will search Lycos:
Then the search will be performed and you will be presented a list of pages and probably a short description. You now simply click on the name of a page that looks interesting. If this page doesn't provide the information you needed, click the back button of your browser and you will see the search results again.
To perform a more enhanced search most search engines provide a link to search form, which offers to set some options that will influence the way the database is searched. This link usually is named (search) options. This form usually offers the following options:
Again, here is an example of how this might look like. Try it out. You can search Lycos directly from here. Enter your query terms (this can be more than one) into the Query line, separated by a space. Select, if all terms (AND), or only one or a specific number of terms should be matched (OR). Lycos also offer to specify how the results should look like. You can select how many results per page should be listed and how many details should be displayed.
After you have entered all information, press the button labeled search Lycos!. After a while you will be presented a list containing all found sites. Note, that if a site isn't listed here, it doesn't mean that it does not exist. Try another search engine instead or narrow your search criteria.
4. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
When searching for information on the WWW, be sure to be as specific as possible when entering your search criteria. A search using common terms like images, jpg, gif or star trek will produce a huge list. Narrow your search by providing longer or more exact criteria. When you are interested in information about the new Star Trek series voyager, then searching for Star Trek or Voyager alone will produce a long list, which you have to browse in order to find what you were looking for. Try a search with Star Trek and Voyager instead. This will narrow the list and you will find the desired information faster.