1.2 Create a search strategy to fully satisfy the client's enquiry

Table of Contents

1. Choosing search terms
2. Structuring an Internet search
   1. Search Engines
   2. Differences between search engines
   3. Compound queries
   4. How search engines work
   5. Metacrawlers
   6. Web directories
   7. Differences between directories and search engines
3. Using portals
4. Using bibliographic databases
5. Frequently-used websites
6. Website suffixes

Compound queries

Note that our search terms consisted of two words, british and planes. When you look down the results at all four websites, you will see that only sometimes are the two words adjacent and that some of the results only have one of the words present. Most search engines have the convention that to indicate the compound term the words should be in quotes ie: "british planes".

Try to get as much experience as you can in using different search engines. You will learn that although using only Google, say, will give you lots of results, the use of a few different engines may give you a better overview of the range of information available for any chosen search topic.

Now let's have a look at how search engines work...