| One of the advantages of having my own web sites is that I get to view how visitors access them. This information is one of the many reports and statistics that I analyze on a daily basis. I have found that my sites are like most others, as most of my visitors enter my sites any one of three ways: |
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One of the most interesting reports that I run not only shows me the search engine/directory a person used, it also shows me the search words or phrases that were used. Search engines are a great tool for helping you find your way around the Internet. They seem simple enough, enter a word or two and BAM! Instant information. But is it really that simple? How many times have you used a search engine and couldn’t find what you were looking for? Even worse, how many results had absolutely nothing to do with what you were looking for to begin with? One of the things most people don’t realize is that many of the search "engines" are actually search "directories", in that they only search for websites that have been entered within their own database. True search "engines" on the other hand, search the entire World Wide Web for the information you need. So which is better? It’s hard to say because it will really depend on the general topic, and the specific information you need relevant to that topic. With a search "directory" you may miss many relevant websites pertaining to your search simply because the directory database has yet to add them. With a true search "engine", you may get more than you need, and have to weed out irrelevant sites that use the same key words and/or phrases. One of the most important things to remember about search "engines" is that the results are only going to be as good as the search words and terms entered by the user. This may even hold true for search "directories", assuming that the directory is current and has added most of the legitimate websites available. So how do you get optimum results from search words and search phrases? Be very specific, and limit the words and/or phrases to those that are relevant to your search. Four of the most popular search sites are Google, MSN, Yahoo! and AOL. I prefer to use a search engine, and my search engine of choice is Google. If you are new to using search sites, or have been using one specific site, you might want to try one or all of these four. Once you get the feel of them, you might want to try others such as Lycos and AltaVista. For the purpose of this article, I will be using Google. Here are some simple tips: Search Words – When using a single word for your search, make sure you use the most relevant word, and that the word is entered in it’s proper form. In other words, if you were looking for websites related to fishing, you would use the word "Fishing", not "Fish". You would also use the word in the proper form of "Fishing", as opposed to "Fishin". While you are not likely to use "Fishin" instead of "Fishing", you might use "Autos" instead of "Automobiles" for another search. Get the idea? To give you an idea of how much information is out there, Google.com gives you about 13,000,000 results when you use the search word "Fishing". Search Phrases – Search phrases help you narrow your searches. For example, if you are looking for sites related to fishing in the Chicago area, you could start by using the phrase "Chicago Fishing". Instead of searching through 13,000,000 results, you just got 404,000 that are more likely to have the information you are looking for. You would get the best search results possible by including the quotation marks when using your desired phrase. Using the quotation marks ensures that the search is being conducted for the desired phrase. Otherwise your search will not only look for websites that use the words together; it will eventually include sites that use the words individually. Using the quotation marks with "Chicago Fishing" will narrow your search down to about 700 sites. Try it for yourself. Use the following link to www.Google.com to experiment. Try the search word "Fishing", and then use a related word such as "Fish" or "Fishery". Then try the search phrase "Chicago Fishing" to narrow your search down to Chicago related fishing sites. Then narrow down your search even more by adding the quotation marks.Quotation marks work even better when you are looking to find a specific name of a person, place or thing. To see how well this works, try searching for your name without the quotation marks, then searching with them. Using the fictitious name of "Peter Jones" without quotation marks resulted in 2,140,000 sites. Using the same name with quotation marks resulted in only 52,800 results. Using "Peter Jones" Chicago narrowed my search down to 2,180 websites. Search "No No’s" – DO NOT USE A SEARCH ENGINE/DIRECTORY TO ENTER THE ADDRESS OF A SPECIFIC WEBSITE. All too often I read my reports and see that someone used the exact web address in a search box. All exact web addresses should be entered into the address bar of your browser. Why would you need to "search" for the site, when you already have the address? Entering the address in a search box does not even guarantee that you will locate the site you are looking for. DO NOT USE FULL SENTENCES. Adding irrelevant words will increase the number of results, and decrease the percentage related to the information you are looking for. For example: "Fishing spots located in the Chicago area" entered in the search box gets me 6,990 results. Most of these results are related to Chicago area fishing, but not specific to finding fishing spots within the Chicago area. Adding quotation marks gives me 0 results. Next time I will explain what "Advanced Operators" are, as well as when and how to use them. Copyright 2003 Joe Danzl & Chicago Fishing Links - All rights reserved. |
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