Here you will find some interesting tips regarding web searching, I used to think one don't need special skills or knowledge to get good results when searching, but I've changed my mind...
Table of contents
"Google is the best". It's still the same at the moment. So, I'll give it a seperate section in this page and share some tips you may find useful
Use wildcards (*). This symbol (*) can be used inside the quote query and actually says the engine to use any word at this place of the phrase. Example : "top * countries" will lead you to all the pages that contains phrases top 10 countries or top 50 countries or top rated countries and so on.
Google is still the best in giving the exact results one expected. Once I tried to find a site with comparing two slogans made by Sony ("go create") and Panasonic ("ideas for life"), so I queried "go create" "ideas for life". Google and MSN Search Beta were the ones giving only 4-5 pages containing two phrases. All others (yahoo search for instance or MSN non-beta Search) gave aproximately 30,000 pages. But it did'nt mean they search better, They tried to correct the phrases, forgetting that I did not ask for this.
Despite the fact that Google is still the best, it's not the only tool a good seeker should use. I will try to explain why. There are different groups of people that made several search engines, the engines are similar when using only when simple queries used. When we start to use special syntax for searching, search engines start to differ in many ways. So there's a possibility that having just a one to third a capacity of Google in number of pages indexed, an engine may give you power with its distinguished searching features.
Inktomi search engine. Actually there's no such thing as public available Inktomi search. It's a company initially offered the web search service for other companies. Now it is owned by Yahoo and all web search services by Yahoo started to understand Inktomi syntax. Additionally there are other companies still using Inktomi, but may be independent from Yahoo. So use any of them (Dec 2004 info): alltheweb, yahoo search, hotbot. Inktomi syntax detailed description can be found at the Fravia page, but I'll show here most useful features from my point of view
If you want to find some personal opinion on a subject, you may use some general words that is more likely be used in one's personal view rather than in different oficial or semi-oficial press releases. This set of words may vary, but some of most frequently used are:
I This is probably is most frequently used word when sharing personal opinion. The problem also is that it's also one of the most frequently used words whereever so such engines as google usually removes it when searching. Fixing is simple, add "+" sign to your query, so now it looks like +I
tried The word try in its past form is a very good step to find real topics related to personal opinions
Fravia's web-searching lore. All good seekers know this resourse. Try this one, there are so many interesting facts, tips, statements, you may know part of them, but I'm sure you will find something you was not aware of.
START. Natural Language Question Answering System. This impressive engine will answer your on virtually any question, made in natural form. For example, What countries speak Spanish? or What is search engine?