Michael's  
  
Internet  
Finding  
Tips:  
Neglected  
Search  
Tools  

Search   
links:   

Quick Links

1. Introduction
2. Annotated list of recommended search sites
3. Why you need a Search strategy
4. Learn your Search syntax

5. Web site search engines, your bookmarks, and your browser history as tools
   Local site search engines
   Searching your bookmark file
   Searching your history file
    

6. HIT smarts - how to best process the 'hits' list
7. Search trivia, evolving technology, bedtime reading

Local Web site search tools

Once you've found a web site that has 'close to what you want', don't give up on it until you've retried your search query using the site-specific search tool. Keep these points in mind:

1. The site-specific search engine probably covers more of the pages from the site than the global search engines.

2. Indexing and cross referencing are usually more complete in the site-specific search engine.

3. Site-specific search data bases are updated more frequently, some on an 'ongoing' basis. Check the search engine feature page mentioned earlier to see the frequency at which the big engines are updated.

4. Quickly check the site-specific search syntax. It may be different than what you are use to.

Searching
your
bookmark
file
(Netscape)

Your bookmark file is searchable. You can SEARCH your bookmark file by name, location, or description.
 

CTRL + B | Edit | Find in Bookmarks...   or  CTRL + B | CTRL + F

The dialog box provides a place for your search string and options to search the name, location, or description fields. There are also options to match case and look for whole words.

Searching
your
history
file
(Netscape)

Occasionally you are looking for a page/website and you know you've been there somewhat recently, but you just can't remember the exact name of the site and you forgot to bookmark it. Here are some suggestions to quickly find that 'lost' site:

Your browser maintains a history file of each site you've visited. Once you display the history list (CTRL + H) you can can sort the list by any of the column headers. In Netscape, these include title, location, first visited, last visited, expiration, or visit count.

But I don't see all those headers you are talking about!!

You can SEARCH your history list by any of the header fields. (Netscape: EDIT | Search History List)
note: The number of 'days of history' is a user settable parameter.

Don't be shy, even if all you say is "Hi!".