Search the Web More Efficiently, Part 4
By Daniel Bazac, October 2003 (updated May 2006).

Getting the right number of Web search results

It's common to receive millions of results, often unrelated to the search. To receive more relevant results you'll have to refine or even rethink the search.

What To Do When You Get Too Many Results:

Here are some ideas to help you refine your search:

• Add one or more descriptive words to your query.
• Use phrases. Enclose two or more words that can appear in exact order within double quotation marks.
• Exclude words you don't want in the results by using the implied Boolean operator "-". Example: the query "red apples" -"yellow apples" will find pages that contain "red apples" - in that order - and will not include pages that contain "yellow apples. " As you see, there is no space between the "-" sign and the word or phrase you want to exclude. There is, however, a space between the "-" sign and the previous word.
• Use the search tool's "advanced search" functions. Limit your search by language, date or by field searching: title, URL, link etc. See the search tool's "search tips" for details.

What To Do When You Get No, Too Few Or Irrelevant Results:

Sometimes you will get messages like "Your search did not match any documents" or "No pages were found containing your query" or "No results." Other times you may get few or irrelevant results.

What You Should Do:

1. Check the spelling of the query. Some search engines automatically detect misspelled words and will show the correct spelling. Just click on the suggested word or words.
2. Delete the least important word from the query.
3. If you used a search phrases try eliminating the double quotes.
4. Use more general terms, alternate spellings, plural forms or synonyms. Recently, "Google introduced a new advanced search feature that allows you to not only search for a particular keyword but also for its synonyms.

   Just place the "~" (tilde) diacritical mark directly in front of the keyword in your search query. For example, "browser ~help" not only searches for "browser help", but also for "browser support", "browser tips" and "browser tutorials."

5. You can also check the spelling of the Web page's URL if you typed it directly into the address field of the browser.
6. If all the above strategies fail, switch to another search tool, preferably a meta search engine such as ez2Find (formerly ez2www.)

Remember: if you're doing a serious research, consider asking a professional Web searcher to do the job. In a few hours, he may find information that would have taken you days to find.

If you receive the message "The page cannot be displayed" or "Not found" the page has been discontinued.

What you can do:

• If a page that doesn't display is not the site's home page you can use the following trick. Cut the Web address of the page starting on the right-hand side and stopping at every forward slash (/). Let's say that the URL of a dead link is www.domainname/archive/article_1.html. First delete "article_1.html" and click "enter." Hopefully you will see the "archive" page and the "article 1." If not, also delete "archive" and click "enter." Hopefully you will get the home page and there will still be an option "archive."
• When you cannot see a page, use the "cached" function of some search engines, such as Google. Go back to the results list and click on the "cached" link near the result. You will get a snapshot of the page stored in Google's index. Keep in mind that Google does not cache all the Web pages in its index and cached pages are often not up-to-date. Wayback Machine can also show you previous versions of a Web page. Simply type the URL and than select a date in the results list. Keep in mind that there are a limited number of URLs indexed in the Wayback Machine's database.

Be aware that sometimes receiving few results means that ONLY a few results matched your query. Switch to a meta search engine and I guarantee you will receive better results.

Sometimes a search tool simply will not work. Why? Because it may be disabled or undergoing changes. Try again later. Other times you might receive messages like "503 Server is busy" or "Too many users. " Check back later. For U.S. residents, early morning and late night are the least busy times.

Go to part 5: Qualities of a good Web searcher>>>

Copyright © Daniel Bazac 2003. All Rights Reserved.

Daniel Bazac is Search Engine Marketer for Web Design in New York, a site design, Search Engine Optimization and Promotion Company. He also maintains Bazac Weblog a blog about the Search Engines and Search Engine Marketing News and Articles. He can be reached at danielbazac@hotmail.com.