Searching the Web There are millions of pages on the Web, finding the one you want can be very, very difficult - but don't worry. This page reveals the little known secrets to searching the Internet and the WWW quickly and efficiently using some easy to remember rules. Follow these and you will get the right pages every time and never have to wade through lists of useless links again. Better still - these rules work for any search engine or web directory! RULE 1 Use + signs to tell the search engine exactly what you are looking for. A search engine is stupid! - if you are looking for information on the city of Chester in the UK, you might, like most people, simply type chester and hope for the best.......... Whoops !!! Not quite what we wanted.   Let's try that again..... This time we will tell the search engine that we only want pages that have the both the words Chester and UK in them - We do this by placing a + sign in front of each word. (Note: Always use capital letters for keywords!) Here goes...... Much better..... Think of all the time you have saved! RULE 2 "Use speech marks to search for phrases" If you use speech marks around phrases, all search engines will only look for pages containing this exact phrase. This is really useful. For example - lets try a search on Ancient Greeks...... (note the speech marks)   Now they look like good links to me! RULE 3 Use Website filters to screen out rubbish Altavista is a quick and powerful search engine that has a Family Filter built in. Yahooligans & AskJeeves for kids are very similar but have special children's sections and higher security. Let's try a search for Literacy Hour ideas - note the use of speech marks. Moments later......... 290 Pages, all about "Literacy Hour" - sorted! Can you remember those simple rules? Rule 1 - Use + signs to tell the search engine which words to include. Rule 2 - Use speech marks to search for an exact phrase. Rule 3 - Use search engines with website filters built in.