how to search the web?

lol. that was just an example i made up. what i'm getting at, i guess, is, is there a way to exclude extraneous data in search parameters so as not to end up with, say "bob's sash and blind store" when searching for "windows".

(yes, i use google, and don't enclose things in quotes)

You'll frequently run across sites that add lists of random words and phrases to their sites in order to attract people looking for something their site doesn't offer. Unfortunately, this is beacuse search engines don't have AI...they scan all known sites and ask the question ''does this site contain the words 'chromesn' entered...yes or no.''

Since the internet has become popular, everyone is creating their own web pages, most of which are 'junk.' If you type in the phrase ''the Ten Commandments,'' you're going to get a mix of results...everything from biblical quotes to sales pitches to sites offering things condemned by the Bible. It's tough wading through the junk to find what you want.

Thus, conducting a good search is now becoming an art. You have to give enough of a description to limit the amount of junk, but not limit it so much as to prevent the display of legitimate results. While you're mastering that ''technique,'' you'll want to check out Google's advanced search, which lets you type in words that must be included, words that can be included, words that you don't want included, and exact phrases that you'd like to have in the results. You can also filter out results that are old, in other languages, or originated from other countries. Then, if you use Yahoo search, you can also login and have certain domains (like www.advertising.com) automatically excluded from your search results. Once all of these ''filters'' have been applied, you'll reduce the number of hits from several million to several hundred, most of which will be exactly what you are looking for.

Hope this helps,
John

get your primary search..go to 'advanced search' on the top of the screen. There is a section for 'don't include these words'.

and life goes on...

Jack

The issue with many searchers is that they do *NOT* know the name of what they're searching for and are trying to look it up. If someone only knows Nicole Kidman by some article, movie, whatever and not by name, then they can't type in what they don't know. Like using the very word to define that word

... but even then, that was not really the issue.

I find Google to be fickle sometimes.

In the past, I've used it to successfully find hardware drivers by searching for any of the various numbers I could find on the piece of hardware in question (usually network or video cards).

Yet on the other hand, I've had many searches come up empty when looking for info/help on specific Windows error messages.

As mentioned before, you just keep playing around with your search terms until you're left with a result that looks prompising.

Thanks for this. I used to use Dogpile before Google came along. Should probably ababandon my need to follow the crowd, eh?

I have used both metacrawler and dogpile in the past, Yahoo and Google are clearly the best search engines (and fastest), but its nice to sometimes get results across multiple sites like those 2 do.