How do you use search engines?

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My sister sent me a joke: IT people know how to use Google better than you.

It made me think. My job involves a lot of using search engines and I find what I want quickly. I find search engines easy to use for personal things too.

But what about people who don't work with computers. Is the quote she sent me true?

What do you type in if you are searching something? What is your experience of finding what you need.

My favourite hoodie has a hole in it so my last search was: "cotton zip up hoodie womens"

I want to join a Pilates class my next Google search will be: "Pilates class near me"

I need to change my bikes breaks so I typed in : "how to change bike brakes cables."

A work example: "external link to bootstrap tabs" rather than "how do I link a bootstrap tab from a menu item".

I try and use keywords as much as possible and cut human fluff words like, "how do I", "why would", "should I", "where is", etc.

What's your experience?

One of the things people tell me I am extremely good at is research. I honestly do not know why, because what I do is just use the search engines...is this really something other people struggle with? Apparently.

I do pretty much exactly what you are describing. I use key word searches most often, but sometimes I will "ask" google a question. "How do you..." or "How do I..." work pretty decently. The trick that I find is most effective is honing the search criteria. If I google a topic, and I find a number of articles that pertain to the information I am seeking but there is info that seems relevant, I put in a new search for a question regarding that info. I open up everything in a new tab so I can browse multiple articles or sites at once to find the info I need, and close them once I see they don't help me at all.

The agency I work for put me in charge of their website design, and I...honestly do not know anything about website design. But because I can use Google, I at least know how to make it work. "Website SEO report" or "DNS server" or "Domain routing pointers" are things I had to find out about at one time, and...well, that was a really annoying situation, because I understood the information, but had no ability to use it. I ended up having to make dozens of phone calls and pretend that I was stupid to the people in tech support so they would point me in the correct direction to get things done (or do the stuff I needed them to fix). Annoying.

But the point is that all it took was me googling this info to find out what I needed to know to effectively handle a situation, which no one in my agency seemed able to do.

I remember the conversation they had when the first assigned me the task:
"Are you any good with websites?"
"Absolutely not. I am a bit of a technophobe. I prefer not to know how things work, so it probably isn't the best thing to have me do."

A week later I am in charge of their website. Either they didn't listen...or, well, I am not sure what else to say about it.

I put tags like search exact words symbols or specific traits between the terms I'm searching for, and filter words that are usually very common but irrelevant.

Filtering can stack and apply by filtering exactly words. Including specific sites.

Optionally, I also know the format to only show specific sites -- if it should be a scientific like essay, blogged or outright from a Q&A board.



The words themselves and how it was types varies.

The more specific the question or topic, the more narrative like question I type.

The more generalized or specifically term-definition search-wise (like a dictionary or in comparison terms), the less narrative like and less likely type questions on the search engine.



I'm not an IT. Not really.
I'm just acquainted with the search engine cheat sheets.

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That's a good idea Edna. I was taught some cheat sheet terms in college. I'll post a link to cheat sheets for different search engines for people who aren't aware of them.

https://whatis.techtarget.com/reference/Search-Engine-Cheat-Sheets

I think the average person can ok with searching but I've met certain below average people (friends, family, etc) who struggle with one particular concept. When their search produces zero results (especially in online stores, they think the problem can be solved by adding more search terms. They don't understand that using more search terms narrows the results and using less search terms broadens the results.

I'm a professional Googler, also known as IT support/Developer. I have a job in a college so I need to wear a lot of hats.

I use search engines similar to Hurtloam.

I’m not a bad researcher. Sometimes, I’m not thorough enough.

YMMV; To get more results...
Do not limit to one search engine. There those with different algorithms and also different security stuff over data.

Also do not limit to the same 'country based' scope. Some can still be English and is not in any English speaking country.



Different browsers and VPN.. As last resort. It's just research after all.

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My experience is that I find search engines difficult for two reasons. The first is that I can't think what to type in to get the desired results as I can know what I am thinking about but somehow I can't put the thought into the english language so I can use that thought. (A bit like mind blank).
The second reason is that it can be hard to work out which is a general advert and what is a genuine thing, and I can very easily become side tracked into days of following leads that has nothing to do with the origional thing that I wanted to look up.

A wierd thing happens to me now and then is that I can have the search engine page up and then my mind just goes blank. I desperately want to look something up to look at something new but then mind blank hits and I stare at the search engine screen. I think "This is crazy. There are millions of things on this internet and I can't think beyond the six or so sites that I am on". My thoughts are blinkered.... But if I can find a lead and I can gel with that lead I will look up everything and go on an in depth long eesearch and spend months researching a single project, if is one that clicks with me. I have the type of mind that can sift through and place some things on hold, whilst discarding others and keeping leads which hold true. I seem to be able to do things that others don't seem to be able to do in this way? I can detatch myself from past learning so that my new research starts from the assumption that I know nothing, so that any pre-concieved thoughts that others have taught me do not cloud the issue. I spent something like 15 to 25 years researching in my mind about the age of the earth from a biblical and a scientific perspective before I finally came up with a conclusion that satisfied my curiosity that did not involve the current teachings to reach the conclusion, and while many of you will simply take what you have been told, and believe it to be true, I have put many years of thought and mental testing each theory before I have reached my answer and the answer to me was that the Biblical account has to be true as it is written, as there is no way that one can add millions of years into the Bible, but likewize that what science claims to be true does not make any logical sense to me either...

I have also researched UFO's (As I have seen my fair share of sightings) and this involved delving into all aspects from the spiritual plain to the physical plain and everything inbetween that I could find. It is detective work that has to start with denying all my pre-concieved ideas and focussing on what I saw, and then gathering all the information I could find and one by one testing the theories and throwing out all the theories that do not add up which eventually leads one left with just a few and they are nearly always man made, either physical testing or testing of sound and holographic picture projection etc. It has taken years to reach these conclusions by accidently stumbling on other elements in the research which click into place.
The problem is introducing these subjects is that people believe in wishy washy things that have no roots to anchor them in what they see. People can be very gullable like that, as they are not able to detatch their thoughts from their pre-concieved ideas. To take root one has to have a secure anchor point to base everything on. One either has God and His Word, or one has the "Big bang" and evolution. (The two can not merge into one. I had been trying to merge these two into one for 20 years and they don't. One is the truth and the other is a lie and it is up to the individual to work out which it is).

Well, if I need an address or any information for a place, I just google the name and usually the information I need will be behind one of the first three links. If I need some term explained, the same thing works. If I need to know how to do something, it gets a little trickier. Often there are lots of links for the thing I google, like if I'm searching for a recipe for a particular food, so I go through several before I choose which to use. Then there are the times I do a "how to do X" type of search and don't really even get results. But to be fair, I do these searches in Finnish, so there's way less source material than in English. Sometimes I switch to searching in English when I don't find what I need in Finnish, but the problem with that is often that the stuff I don't find in Finnish tends to be something complicated, so my limited English skills keep me from getting the full use out of whatever information I find.

I usually use Google by typing words and phrases in normally. Google comes with other functions that I use. For example if I'm looking for an official report of a well known event, I do a search only for PDF file types which immediately excludes all news reports and narrows it down to official agencies and government reports.

You can also exclude words and include them. For example if you wanted to look at pre covid virus articles you can exclude "covid" from popping up giving you only results that don't endlessly ramble about Covid 19 for hundreds of pages.

I use keywords and try to limit it to keywords, if I can. I find the more words in a search the more unrelated results I get, so even if I need an answer to a question I try to really simplify it and take out anything unnecessary.