How to search the Internet

I'm often asked how to search the Internet. I was asked again recently by Bill Foulds a lifestyle planner at Breakthrough for Breakfast a Melbourne based business networking group, so I thought I would finally write an article on the subject. Sure we can all search the Internet but a lot of people I speak to have problems actually finding what they want.

I'll be referring to Google mostly.., well actually entirely as it is my favourite search engine. It is rare that I have to use anything else. Firstly keep in mind that when you do a search on any search engine it is only it's own database that it is searching. This means that if it has not indexed a page from a website with the information you are looking for, it will not turn up in the search. In fact this is why so many websites do not appear in the search engines, quite simply they have not been indexed by the search engine bots. The main link in Google will take you directly to the site whereas the cached link will display the webpage from it's database.

When searching think about the type of website that would have the information you want and use words that you think would appear on that site. For instance if you are looking to buy a caravan, don't just type caravans for sale, do you want a new one, a second hand one? How many people should it accomodate? Where do you want to pick it up from? Are you after a particular brand?

Let's look at another search. I am looking for information about the Government's new policy WorkChoice and I am sick of finding references to Stew Art Media in Google because of the Workchoice keyword case study we did. So this is how I find what I want:

• I only want Government information
• I want to find specifically information about Australian Workplace Agreements

Here's how we do it. In Google type Workchoice "Australian Workplace Agreements" site:gov.au . By putting "Australian Workplace Agreements" in quotation marks it tells Google that I specifically only want web pages with that exact phrase. Without the quotes it would return first pages where the words appeared together and then pages  where all of the words appeared somewhere on the page.  By then using site:gov.au it tells Google I only want it to search it's database for Australian Government webpages. You can even put specific departments like site:ato.gov.au for the Australian Tax Office. I could have equally searched the ALP website for the same information. Keep in mind though if you don't find what you are looking for it might just mean it is not in Google's database.

Here is the Workchoice "Australian Workplace Agreements" search.

Search Engine Optimisation Newsletters - October

Breakthrough For Breakfast is a Melbourne based business building forum of which I am a member.