The best way to locate almost any information on the Internet is by using the search engines. There are so many of them- each with its own style, but the basic idea is that they take your word(s) and locate documents on the Internet with those words inside.
I'm no expert, but I've been using search engines for many years, and I'll share some of what I've learned about utilizing search engines, particularly http://google.com
The first thing you need to learn is that, most times, you will have to sift through lots of useless stuff to find the information you're looking for, and even then you still might not be successful. The key to finding information is the search word(s) you put in the search box.
You can use one word, multiple words, phrases, and sentences for your search. It's usually better to use more than 1 word, but choose them carefully or you will find yourself in a pit of useless search returns..
Recently, I wanted to learn a bit about bamboo furniture. I'm interested in getting some, but the prices here are so expensive. I wanted to find some information on styles and prices, for comparison.
I went to google.com and typed in the words (without the quotation marks), "bamboo+furniture+prices" I took some root words from what I wanted to find, added the "+" between each word to tell the search engine to make sure that all of these words would be included in the search results. I could have added "style" or "information", but generally, the fewer words you use, the better and these last two words are more general in nature, so this wouldn't help me.
If I just wrote (without the quotation marks), "bamboo, furniture, prices " I still may have found what I was looking for, but I have told the search engine to search differently now. The search engine will now return any and all documents with "bamboo" or "furniture" or "prices" . The search results might include prices for automobiles, furniture repair shops, or technical information about the bamboo species, none of which would be very useful to you, and would cause you to waste lots of time.
Another example....Suppose I want to find information about the way people live in the Philippines. If I write , "Philippines information" in the search box, the real information I need will be buried among the thousands of documents returned with the words "Philippine" or "information" in the document somewhere. Among the returns will be pictures of the Philippines, or information on how to get your driver's license in California. You will have to wade through everything to find what to need if you don't choose your search terms more carefully.
Think about what you to know, specifically. Food? clothing? Culture? songs? Politics? Putting in "Philippine+food" will narrow your search considerably, and provide less junk to wade through before finding which you actually need.
If you want to get fancy with your search at the google.com, click on the link that says "Advanced Search". That will take you to another search page where you can really define your your search area to include specific parts of the Internet ,phrases, recent listings, and how many result searches per page you want to see.
I think the most valuable thing on offer from google.com is that they keep a copy of each page they index. If you click on the 'Cached' link of the search returns, it will give you the page with your search terms highlighted in the text. Very valuable for pinpointing your info very quickly on a page with lots of text.
Each search engine has its own methods and ways of searching. Each one should have a page with information on how to do an effective search using that particular search engine, probably a link called something like, "Search tips".
Good look, and happy hunting!
Larry
