Search skills for the web

Most search engines offer advanced searching, enabling you to search for specific information on the web.

Comparison of advanced searching

Most search engines allow you to limit your search. The table below shows some of the typical limits from the Google and Yahoo search engines.

To compare these two search engines further see Google Advanced Search and Yahoo Advanced Search.

Search engine comparison
Functionality	Google	Yahoo
Limit to a particular site/domain e.g.: .ac.uk, .edu	Yes	Yes
Limit to file types e.g.: .pdf, Excel, Word, PowerPoint	Yes	Yes
Limit to a country e.g.: UK, US, France	Yes

You can also recognise where a website has come from by looking at the domain names of an internet address:

Domain names and their internet addresses
Domain name	Type of site
.ac.uk	UK academic website
.edu	US academic website
.gov.uk	UK government website
.gov	US government website
.co.uk	UK company
.org.uk	UK organisation
.org	US or UK organisation or company

The above is a guide only. Not all UK companies will have a '.co.uk' domain name. Many now use '.com' or even '.org'

You can use short cuts in some search engines to carry out more complex searches.

Shortcut keys
Shortcut command	Example	What it does	Search Engines
OR	vacation OR holiday	Looks for either term	Google Yahoo
-	smoking -passive	Looks for smoking but not passive smoking	Google Yahoo
""	"to be or not to be"	Searches for the exact phrase	Google Yahoo
site:	library site: www.nottingham.ac.uk	Looks for particular keyword(s). In this case library, only in the University of Nottingham web pages at www.nottingham.ac.uk	Google Yahoo
link:	link: www.nottingham.ac.uk	All pages that link to the University of Nottingham	Google Yahoo

Talk to someone in your school or a specialist support service