10 Tricks for Finding Anything on Yahoo

Yahoo is a wonderful search engine for finding things on the internet, but it can be a bit tricky to find what you want if you don’t know how. Here are ten tricks to help you find what you are looking for.

1. Be Specific in Word Choice. Using words that describe exactly what you are looking for will help eliminate being overwhelmed by your search results. Words such as eyeglasses or drinking glasses will help keep you from having to dig through the many irrelevant websites that will be presented if you just search for glasses.
2. Use the Addition Symbol. If you want to indicate a word that must be included in your Yahoo search results, this symbol can eliminate much unrelated content. For instance, if you want to find content related to the health effects of cell phone use on potential cancer risk, you might search for cellular phone +cancer.
3. Use the Subtraction Symbol. If you want to exclude some type of content, the subtraction sign can be helpful. For instance, if you want to find information on cell phone use unrelated to cancer, you would search for cellular phone -cancer.
4. Use Quotation Marks. Adding quotation marks around your search phrase will guarantee that your results will only include sites or documents that include that phrase. Searching for “Red River of the North” will give you results only on the river that divides North Dakota and Minnesota, and you won’t have to slog through information about the Red River in Texas or other similarly named rivers.
5. Yahoo Shortcuts. Yahoo has shortcut keywords and symbols available to you that can save time in your searches. If you’re going to visit another city you might search weather Minneapolis to decide what clothes to pack for the trip.
6. 6. Perform Multiple-Task Searches. If you’re planning a vacation in Wisconsin, you might phrase your search as Wisconsin Fishing or Water Parks to find places to fish and places to take your kids for swimming fun when the weather turns rainy.
7. Special Keywords. Here are three special, or Meta words that you can use. The word site: can help you find results within a specific domain, such as site:yahoo.com. The word intitle: will help you find a specific word in index titles, such as intitle:Language to help you find documents with language in the title. The term url: added before a web address will locate a document such as url:http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/basics-05.html.
8. Focus on Types of Results. There are links above the Yahoo search box that can help limit the results to what you are looking for clicking on “Images” will limit your offerings to pictures, click on “Local” to limit your Yahoo search to results in your area.
9. Other Peoples’ Searches. As you type what you’re looking for into the search box, suggestions for similar searches performed by others will appear below the box. These can be helpful in finding exactly what you wish to find.
10. Try Different Methods. Opening two or three tabs and doing your search using two or three of the methods above simultaneously, one in each tab, allows you to immediately compare and find the results group that best matches what you are looking for.

The use of these ten tricks to use the Yahoo search engine should make your search faster, and more effective at finding only what you need, and keep you from being buried in a lot of irrelevant results that only make your search more difficult

Taken From Dial Up