The only revelation left in online searching is when you realize there is no revelation, when you realize you are in constant possession of a present the past could never have envisioned as a future. You probably think nothing of reaching into your pocket, sliding out a slender rectangle, and instantly getting tens of thousands of results in a second flat based on a couple of keywords.
Not only is anything and everything accessible, but you don’t even have to thumb through an index nor struggle to remember a possible word you were looking for because you can just type “words like ____” or “what is the name of that thing that you do _____ with?”
All that is left to admire with technology so incredible is going back to the past and recognizing when it was in its infancy.
Thirty years ago, shortly after its initial launch, “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web” was renamed with a much catchier name: “Yahoo!”
Creators Jerry Yang and David Filo wanted to create a taxonomical web directory where people could search different websites through a subject hierarchy instead of by individual name. By 1995, a search function had been added and Yahoo! would shortly become the world’s first popular search engine and Internet directory.
Yahoo! was, however, far from the only of its kind in the mid-1990s—WebCrawler was the first to feature a single word search within a webpage; LookSmart became a fierce competitor; Altavista was the first to allow natural language queries so that everyday language could be used to bring in search results; Ask Jeeves aimed to expand upon the possibilities of natural language; Google was the first major search engine to expand principles of refining search results based on relevancy.
Search engines have come a long way since the advent of natural language queries and the ability to order results based on relevancy. What are some other ways to make the most out of search engines we love?
1. Narrow it down.
Don’t forget that results can be grouped by photos, videos, news etc.
2. Use quotation marks to refine your search.
If you want to find nearby chocolate ice cream and type those three words, your search results will bring up everything that contains one or more of those words. If you put the query in quotes, as in “chocolate ice cream,” the search results will only include those three words in that order, no more and no less.
3. Did you know you can purposely exclude certain results?
If you want to search for a famous person like Gerald Ford, your results will no doubt include thousands of hits about cars because of the Ford Motor Company. But if you search “Gerald Ford -cars” or “Gerald Ford -motor,” the results will exclude the word after the hyphen, making finding sources for writing that report far less stressful.
4. Start simple, add words as you search.
Let’s say you’re approaching a job interview. You're concerned about what you should wear, what questions you may want to prepare beforehand, etc., and you’re unsure how to start. Try searching “job interview” and then expand to “job interview tips.”
If the results are not satisfactory, go further by tailoring the details to your situation, like “job interview tips for a second interview” or “job interview tips for a promotion.” You can always start simple and get more specific.
5. Add a reliable website name to the search.
Let’s say basketball is your game, but you also love ESPN’s way of organizing data more than the NBA’s or Basketball-Reference. Instead of searching “Cade Cunningham stats” and being given thousands of results in an order that offers no specific benefit to your needs, search “Cade Cunningham stats ESPN” to make sure ESPN’s website is at the top of your search.
If you have a website you like/trust the most, you can do this with everything from recipes (“chicken dumplings Allrecipes”) to bookstores (“new Nora Roberts book Barnes and Noble”).
6. Try using a photo.
Do you see a flower you’re curious about that you can’t find the right combination of words to identify? If you’re a Google user, try an app like Google Lens and take a photograph. Google Lens uses image recognition technology to bring up search results instead of words or phrases.
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