Searching for information has never been easier, or more frustrating. However, you can reduce the amount of stress and frustration you experience by knowing where to look and how to look.

The Web search engines (like Yahoo!, Excite, Hotbot, Lycos and more) provide an enormous benefit for those looking for specific information. However, they can often give you thousands of "hits" that are useless.

For example, suppose you are doing some research on Gates McFadden, the actress who played Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. If you do a search on the word "Gates" you will get 1266 site matches on Yahoo! which will list all kinds of details. You’ll find out about Bill Gates, Gates (as related to fences), Heaven’s Gates, Gates Mills, Ohio and more. The key is to narrow the search. Here’s a quick and handy way to do that:

In Alta Vista, you have more flexibility. For instance, if you type Gates McFadden you’ll get references to all words with Gates and all words with McFadden. This can be overwhelming. A more refined way to locate specific information is to simply put it in quotes. For instance, "Gates McFadden" will produce those phrases where the two words appear together.

However, if you put the search in the following form you’ll yield a much richer and more detailed search:

+"gates" +mcfadden -bill

Let’s look closely at what was typed. Notice the plus sign (+) was used indicating that we wanted to add this. However, we also used a minus sign (-) in front of the word bill. That way, we would be able to get all references to Gates McFadden and not be bothered with that computer guy from Redmond! Alta Vista is a handy search engine that provides an abundance of information.

Anoher standard search engine that is Excite (www.excite.com). This site will also provide the added search tools to refine your searching and locate the kind of information you need to make the right decisions in your business.

Hotbot (www.hotbot.com) provides the ability to also check information for specific geographical areas (like North America, Asia, etc.) and to include possible audio, video and other multimedia links in your search. This could reveal information that you didn’t know might have existed about your particular search.

Searching Multiple Engines Fast

To conduct a search rapidly on several different search engines, you can use Search.com, a service from Cnet (www.search.com). This service will provide you with a fast reference to several search engines without having to access each one separately.

This is a handy tool to use when you have to get fast information from a variety of sources. However, the disadvantage is that it can bring in some extraneous material. When I typed in my name I received 15 results. Some referred to my home page but others merely were not related to anything I knew. However, it was a refined search that didn’t produce as much extraneous material as you would normally get on a more traditional search engine.

Newspaper Searches

You can receive a wealth of information from local newspapers. Are you considering an expansion of your business into a given region or city? You could gain a lot of information by studying what the local papers are saying about certain topics. Will your new business fit into that community? Is there any competitive pressure there now?

A great source to find many different newspapers from around the country is located at www.newslink.org from the American Journalism Review. You’ll want to consider placing a bookmark for this on your browser. You’ll find information from newspapers from all 50 states. From there you can research what is being done in that local paper.

Don’t forget that the archive information can be a most valuable source of information. You’ll find references to local events, local competitors, potential competitors and more.

Useful Articles

Another site you’ll want to visit for serious searches will be A Business Compass (ABC) located at www.abcompass.com. This site calls itself "The next-generation Internet search engine for business information." As lofty as that sounds, you’ll find a wide array of potentially useful information.

ABC provides an indexing and abstracting service. This can give you just a taste of an article before you go into the full feature. You can pull up articles and see how they are related to your search criterion. From there, you can do more searching to locate even further articles and information.

This site is still free, however, they are anticipating it will be a charge-per-use in the future. Now is a good time to visit and determine is this resource would be useful to you.

Personalized Web Searching

A relatively new web site gives you the ability to search for those items that are of interest to you. The service is called WiseWire and it is located at www.wisewire.com. Much like push technology, it gives you what you want, and much like a more traditional search engine it lets you do research. However, the difference is that you can do a search and then the service will remember what you did earlier so you won’t have to wade through the same information again and again.

WiseWire blends in three innovative strategies that can be helpful in your searching.

• Adaptive Content-based Filtering. This allows the service to read and filter everything for you.
• Adaptive Collaborative. This feature is particularly handy to find out what OTHERS are looking at. Rather than be limited by only what you find interesting, it would be beneficial to see what others like so you can respond accordingly. You don’t have to live on a stranded island of information.
• Dynamic Real-Time Content Flow. This provides you with relevant information quickly and rapidly.

Buying Source on the Web

Thomas Register of American Manufacturers has long been a standard for getting current pricing information on companies and their products and services. You can now search online for over 155,000 companies along with 3,100 online supplier catalogs. This will provide the ability to search many companies in both the US and Canada for the product or service that you need. You’ll also be able to get specific information on the companies you need to research.

Located at www1.thomasregister.com (note the 1 after the normal "www"), you can find an index of many items you’ll need.

Conclusion

The Web is becoming a bigger part of business and personal life each month. Knowing how to search for and obtain the information you need will be a vital skill for the future. Take some time to visit these sites and note the benefits from them.