Published in InfoAlert.

One of the most exciting aspects of the Internet is the enormous volume of information available on every topic one could imagine. On the other hand, it's also one of the most stressful aspects.

Sure we know it's out there, but how do we find it within a reasonable period of time and yet maintain our sanity?

We use search engines or directories.

Before you can do any serious searching, it's essential to learn how search engines work and to feel comfortable using them. Let's look at some definitions before we go any further.

Search engines: Also called "spiders" or "crawlers," search engines constantly visit web sites in order to create catalogs of web pages. Because they run automatically and index so many web pages, search engines may often find information not listed in directories.

Directories: Directories are created by humans. Sites must be submitted, and then they are assigned to an appropriate category. Because of the human role, directories can often provide better results than search engines. Yahoo is an example of a directory.

Each search engine is a little different from the others, which means there's not one set of instructions that works for them all. This makes learning to use them a little tricky, which is why most people get comfortable with one or two engines and stick to them.

With most of the engines, if you put phrases in quotes, like "marketing tools," the search engine will look for that phrase, versus the words "marketing" and "tools" separately.

Some of the engines will look for variations of a search word, like "manage" and "management."

Many search engines will allow Boolean searches, where you can combine search terms. The basic Boolean terms are represented by the words AND, OR and NOT. Variations that are supported by some engines include ADJACENT, NEAR and FOLLOWED BY.

For example, if you want to search for sites that include both "finance" and "banking," you can perform a Boolean search by typing in: finance AND banking.

Let's look at some specific tips for each of the major search engines:

With Alta Vista, if you want to exclude a topic, you must do it like this: finance AND NOT loans. Use the Refine function by first searching for any word, then selecting the Refine button. Narrow your search down from there.

Use Excite when you're not sure of the exact term to use. Because Excite is concept-oriented, you should include as many words as you can think of when running a search, or it may not return precise results.

HotBot's SuperSearch feature lets you restrict your search based on date, location, or media type.

With InfoSeek, use a comma to separate names or titles, such as: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs.

LookSmartallows you to browse, where you have access to over 250,000 reviews, or to search by tapping into Alta Vista's database of sites.

When using Lycos, go to Advanced Search and change the default option from All the Words to the more restrictive option of The Exact Phrase to avoid paging through useless sites. Improve your search results by being specific.

Northern Light classifies documents by topic through its Custom Search Folders. Use many words in your search, like 'ski resorts Vermont' instead of 'skiing.'

Search.Com utilizes Infoseek's database for general searching but uses its own database of listings for subject searches. Capitalize names and titles.

WebCrawler supports the Near/# command, which allows you to specify that the search words be within a certain number of words of each other.

Example: rain NEAR/10 desert (specifies that rain and desert be within 10 words of each other)

When using Yahoo, narrow your search before ever entering a search word by choosing a category on the main page.

For an excellent source of information about search engines, from both a user's and a webmaster's point of view, visit SearchEngineWatch. Under Search Engine Tutorials, you'll learn various tricks of the trade and which search engines respond to those tricks.

Robin Nobles is a freelance writer who can be reached at robinnobles@robinsnest.com.

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