e.g. www.microsoft.com [ Home | Getting Started on the Internet | A Challenge | Help | About Searching | Useful Links | Safety Issues| Ballakermeen Home Page]
To find a big company all that is often needed is to type what
you expect their address to be in the "Address Bar" e.g. www.microsoft.com
To get the most from you experience of the WWW you will need to become familiar with at least one of the search engines. Don't be alarmed by them - their screens are very full of information, some useful. Become familiar with one of the engines - get to know the way it presents information. Most of the companies have gathered together information frequently requested, and presents it in lists or separate links.
Advanced searches can be very useful. Sometimes a word or phrase can return millions of answers, so you need to refine your question. There is a language (based on Boolean Algebra) which helps to separate the men from the boy bands. It is logical and not that hard to use.
| AND | Finds documents containing all of the specified words or phrases. Peanut AND butter finds documents with both the word peanut and the word butter. |
| OR | Finds documents containing at least one of the specified words or phrases. Peanut OR butter finds documents containing either peanut or butter. The found documents could contain both items, but not necessarily. |
| AND NOT | Excludes documents containing the specified word or phrase. Peanut AND NOT butter finds documents with peanut but not containing butter. NOT must be used with another operator, like AND. AltaVista does not accept 'peanut NOT butter'; instead, specify peanut AND NOT butter. |
| NEAR | Finds documents containing both specified words or phrases within 10 words of each other. Peanut NEAR butter would find documents with peanut butter, but probably not any other kind of butter. |
| ( ) | Use parentheses to group complex Boolean phrases. For example, (peanut AND butter) AND (jelly OR jam) finds documents with the words 'peanut butter and jelly' or 'peanut butter and jam' or both. |
| anchor:text | Finds pages that contain the specified word or phrase in the text of a hyperlink. anchor:"Click here to visit garden.com" would find pages with "Click here to visit garden.com" as a link. |
| applet:class | Finds pages that contain a specified Java applet. Use applet:morph to find pages using applets called morph. |
| domain:domainname | Finds pages within the specified domain. Use domain:uk to find pages from the United Kingdom, or use domain:com to find pages from commercial sites. |
| host:hostname | Finds pages on a specific computer. The search host:www.shopping.com would find pages on the Shopping.com computer, and host:dilbert.unitedmedia.com would find pages on the computer called dilbert at unitedmedia.com. |
| image:filename | Finds pages with images having a specific filename. Use image:beaches to find pages with images called beaches. |
| link:URLtext | Finds pages with a link to a page with the specified URL text. Use link:www.myway.com to find all pages linking to myway.com. |
| text:text | Finds pages that contain the specified text in any part of the page other than an image tag, link, or URL. The search text:graduation would find all pages with the term graduation in them. |
| title:text | Finds pages that contain the specified word or phrase in the page title (which appears in the title bar of most browsers). The search title:sunset would find pages with sunset in the title. |
| url:text | Finds pages with a specific word or phrase in the URL. Use url:myway.com to find all pages on all servers that have the word myway in the host name, path, or filename--the complete URL, in other words. |
This page is from the Altavista Web Site - one of the best search engines available.
For other search engines got to http://www.metaplus.com/
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