Guessing Uniform Resource Locaters
Basic Principle #1
Think of the organization most likely to provide an answer to your question. Then try to go directly to their Web site.
Try guessing the central URL for the organization.
Leave off http://
Try the common www to start the machine address
Use the name, acronym, or brief name of the organization (nra, honda, uwyo) in the middle
Add the appropriate top level domain, most often .com. See a complete list of country codes or try one of the following common endings:
com for commercial
net for networks, but can be used by anyone
edu for U.S. higher education
org for other organizations, but can be used by anyone
mil for U.S. military
gov for U.S. federal government
int for international organizations established by treaties
.state.XX.us for U.S. state governments, but .us is now open for anyone
And a few new in 2001-02, still uncommon ones:
biz for businesses
coop for co-operatives
info is open for anyone
name for personal pages
museum for museums
aero, pro are coming
Combining Words when Searching
To get more precise results, add more words to the search. With billions of Web pages indexed, adding more words helps to narrow the search results to a better match. Use the most unique words first. Use a minus - to exclude terms.
Whenever possible, try a phrase search first.
Basic Principle #2:
Use phrase searching whenever possible. Almost all the portals and search engines can do phrase searching -- searching for the words entered adjacent to each other and exactly in the order submitted. Most use double quotes to identify a phrase:
"this is a phrase"
Examples:
To Narrow results for a search on apples
add more words: apples strawberries
Or use a phrase search: “apple pie recipe”
Use the – to exclude : apples strawberries -kiwi
Source: http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/strat/basicsearch.html
