Better Searching

Directions and Worksheet

This worksheet is designed to help you record your answers as you explore advanced Internet
searching techniques and think about why the number of hits came out as they did. Before getting
started, make sure your advanced search options are completely visible.
This link will take you directly to Google Advanced Search.
Go to
http://www.google.com/advance
d_search

When searching on your own, you can type advanced search into the
search bar of any browser and the first link will be to Google Advanced
Search.
Another option when using Google is to conduct a search then scroll to
the bottom of the first search results screen where youll find a link to
Advanced Search.

This window opens, but does

not include all the options
available for advanced
searching.
To access the other options,
see below.

If you scroll down the page,

youll see a set of links under
the heading You can also
Follow the link titled Find pages
that are similar to or link to a
URL.
Now youre ready to refine your
search.

Directions: The column on the left tells what to search for and how to search for it. Record the
number of hits you get in the Matches column. Explain what contributed to the number of hits in the
Reasons column. The space in the column will expand as you type.

Question
Find web pages that have...
all these words: Atlantis continent

# Matches
609,000

But don't show pages that have...any of these

unwanted words: shuttle film movie

The first search shows only

what? And excludes what?
It shows Atlantis continent, but
it excludes shuttle, film, and
movie.

Find web pages that have...

all these words: Atlantis

115,000,000

Find web pages that have...

all these words: Greenville

1,710,000

The second one has more hits

because we didnt exclude
anything from the search.

The first search shows only

what? And excludes what?

one or more of these words: Maine ME

The first search shows only

Greenville, Maine and excludes
South Carolina.

But don't show pages that have...

any of these unwanted words: South Carolina SC

Find web pages that have...

all these words: Greenville

96,400,000

this exact wording or phrase: San Diego State

University

10,900,000

Find web pages that have...

all these words: San Diego State University

Reasons

258,000,000

The second one has more hits

becausewe didnt exclude
South Carolina.

The second one has more hits

because it wasnt in an exact
wording or phrase.

this exact wording or phrase: Bill 602P

2,270
this exact wording or phrase: the recent online
hoax

10
What do these searches show?

this exact wording or phrase: demonstrating

genuine leadership

2,730

this exact wording or phrase: Jenny kissed me

when we met

4,180

Page-specific tools:
Find pages similar to the page:

551,000

These searches show the

results of the exact wording in
the search.

These are different because...

pages similar to the page is

www.edutopia.org
Find pages that link to the page:
www.edutopia.org

5,960

Find pages similar to the page:

kids.msfc.nasa.gov

18,400

Find pages that link to the page:

kids.msfc.nasa.gov

11,500

more broad where as pages

that link to the page are not as
common.

These are different because...

pages that link to the page
might have nothing to do with
the information on the website,
where as the pages similar to
the page most likely show the
same information.

Reflection: Please reflect on what you learned while completing this assignment.
Why are these advanced, Internet searching techniques important to you? Support your ideas with
specific examples.
These advanced, Internet searching techniques are important to me because they make it a lot
easier to specifically search things in an easy way. For example, if I want to search the place
Atlantis but not any movies of Atlantis, I could easily exclude the words related to movies in my
search with Google Advanced Search by typing those words in the none of these words section
and pressing enter.