How do you use search engines?

[RamistThomist]

I realize this kind of like asking how do you talk.

For example, if I wanted to search for mp3s by Keith Mathison, but didn't want extraneous stuff in the search, what do I do?

 

[blhowes]

I realize this kind of like asking how do you talk.

For example, if I wanted to search for mp3s by Keith Mathison, but didn't want extraneous stuff in the search, what do I do?

Maybe something like +"Keith Mathison" +mp3

 

[Semper Fidelis]

When I did a search I found this thread as the 4th most relevant result on Google: "Keith Mathison on mp3" - Google Search

Talk about extraneous results!

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Were you looking for something specific from him? I can contact him for you if you're looking for a resource.

 

[Davidius]

go here:

Boolean Searching on the Internet

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Also here: Web Search Help Center

 

[RamistThomist]

Were you looking for something specific from him? I can contact him for you if you're looking for a resource.

I just wanted to see if he had any good audio lectures. I do a lot of my learning/traveling by listening to mp3s. I have read most all of his books. If you contact him and he does have mp3s, or can direct me to where, that would be great.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Jacob,

Keith doesn't have any lectures online.

 

[AV1611]

I realize this kind of like asking how do you talk.

For example, if I wanted to search for mp3s by Keith Mathison, but didn't want extraneous stuff in the search, what do I do?

The most simple search would be: "Keith Mathison" AND mp3

Google will automatically put an AND in. You could also use the advanced search, and you could use a better search engine than Google. Google's logarithms will do strange things at times.

 

[RamistThomist]

what's a better search engine?

 

[Dwimble]

Google should work for you fine. Here's a quick rundown of the best way to search using Google (some of this has already been mentioned in this thread):

1. In the search box, put any phrases you want to find, in quotes. So, in this case you'd put ["Keith Mathison"]. Don't type the brackets...I just put them there to illustrate exactly what you type in the box. It's worth noting that you can include multiple phrases, so you could use: ["Keith Mathison" "R.C. Sproul"] if you wanted to get pages that have BOTH phrases on them.

2. Put any additional words related to what you want to find. For example: [mp3 audio recordings]. This will give you pages that contain ALL of those words. So, if a page had "mp3" but not "recordings" then the search results wouldn't list that page.

3. If you want to make some of the words in number 2 above optional instead of required, then put "OR" between each of them. So, using the example above, you'd instead use: [mp3 OR audio OR recordings]. That would result in pages that contain ANY of those words.

4. Put a minus sign (i.e. hyphen) before any words that you do NOT want to be included on the resulting pages. For example, if your search yielded a bunch of pages that contained recordings by some punk rocker who also happened to be named "Keith Mathison", then adding [-punk] to the search box would filter out those pages from the search.

Combining all of the above, you'd have a search box that looked something like this:
["Keith Mathison" "R.C. Sproul" mp3 recordings OR audio -punk]

I usually look at several links on the first page or two of results, and if they don't yield the result I'm looking for then I try to narrow down the search a bit. With a little practice you should get the hang of it.

NOTE: If you want, you could also use Google's Advanced Search page instead of the regular search box at google.com. If you use that then you don't need to use quotes, "OR", "-", or remember anything else like that. There are separate boxes for each thing, i.e. required words, phrases, optional words, words to omit, and other options.

 

[RamistThomist]

Google should work for you fine. Here's a quick rundown of the best way to search using Google (some of this has already been mentioned in this thread):

1. In the search box, put any phrases you want to find, in quotes. So, in this case you'd put ["Keith Mathison"]. Don't type the brackets...I just put them there to illustrate exactly what you type in the box. It's worth noting that you can include multiple phrases, so you could use: ["Keith Mathison" "R.C. Sproul"] if you wanted to get pages that have BOTH phrases on them.

2. Put any additional words related to what you want to find. For example: [mp3 audio recordings]. This will give you pages that contain ALL of those words. So, if a page had "mp3" but not "recordings" then the search results wouldn't list that page.

3. If you want to make some of the words in number 2 above optional instead of required, then put "OR" between each of them. So, using the example above, you'd instead use: [mp3 OR audio OR recordings]. That would result in pages that contain ANY of those words.

4. Put a minus sign (i.e. hyphen) before any words that you do NOT want to be included on the resulting pages. For example, if your search yielded a bunch of pages that contained recordings by some punk rocker who also happened to be named "Keith Mathison", then adding [-punk] to the search box would filter out those pages from the search.

Combining all of the above, you'd have a search box that looked something like this:
["Keith Mathison" "R.C. Sproul" mp3 recordings OR audio -punk]

I usually look at several links on the first page or two of results, and if they don't yield the result I'm looking for then I try to narrow down the search a bit. With a little practice you should get the hang of it.

NOTE: If you want, you could also use Google's Advanced Search page instead of the regular search box at google.com. If you use that then you don't need to use quotes, "OR", "-", or remember anything else like that. There are separate boxes for each thing, i.e. required words, phrases, optional words, words to omit, and other options.

Dude

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Dude

Where's my car?

 

[AV1611]

what's a better search engine?

AlltheWeb.com
Clusty the clustering search engine

They are not better in terms of improvement but rather offer different functionality and complement one another.