Finding what you need: using internet search engines

Leadership, Sept, 2000 by Marc Elliot Hall

* Nine entries each for "K-12" education "administrator shortage" as well as and "K-12" and education and "administrator shortage"

Google (www.google.com)

A newcomer to the search scene, Google is now among the most popular search engines. Google found ...

* Eleven entries each for "K-12" education "administrator shortage" as well as and "K-12" and education and "administrator shortage" (the same nine as Yahoo! plus two more).

Go/Infoseek (www.infoseek.com)

Infoseek was a search pioneer, but it has since been acquired by the Go Network, which is in turn owned by Disney. Infoseek found ...

* 3,611 matches for "K-12" education "administrator shortage" and 29,276,186 matches for and "K-12" and education and "administrator shortage"

Excite! (www.excite.com)

Primarily another index rather than search engine, Excite! specializes in finding the "top 10" results for any search (although it will give you more than 10 results if it has more to offer. It just won't tell you how many more). Excite! found ...

* 17 matches for "K-12" education "administrator shortage" and an unknown number (more than 30) of matches for and "K-12" and education and "administrator shortage"

Alta Vista (www.altavista.com)

The granddaddy of all search engines, Alta Vista is renowned for its comprehensive search results. This is the engine I always resort to if nobody else can find what I'm looking for. Alta Vista found ...

* 16 entries for "K-12" education "administrator shortage" and 1,175,172 pages found for and "K-12" and education and "administrator shortage"

Ask Jeeves (www.askjeeves.com)

Ask Jeeves doesn't use Boolean logic in the sense that other engines do. Rather, it allows you to use natural language when querying it about your subject. The query: Where will I find information about the K-12 education administrator shortage? found ...

* five related questions and then went out to Boolean engines and found an additional 37 possible links.

Northern Light (www.northernlight.com)

Another newcomer, Northern Light produces tightly focused results, although I have no idea what the color in their trademark "Blue Custom Search Folders" has to do with the validity of their results. Northern Light found ...

* 465,991 matches for "K-12" education "administrator shortage" and 21 matches for and "K-12' and education and "administrator shortage"

Tips and tricks

Finally, here are a few tricks.

1. Always search on more than one service before you give up on finding something. Most search engines will provide you with links to other search engines. Yahoo!'s links, for example, are at the bottom of its results pages. Many search engines will even save your query and automagically do the search on a second engine when you click the appropriate link.

2. You can run multiple, simultaneous searches across multiple search engines using sites like Dogpile.com and Metasearch.com.

3. Use more than one syntax. Because different search engines prefer different operators, try "K-12" education "administrator shortage" as well as and "K12" and education and "administrator shortage"