DO A "SMART SEARCH"

Are you wasting too much time searching online?

Are you tired of sifting through second graders’ reports, fanatics’ ramblings, and advertisements in search of reliable information?

TRY THIS:

*  If you find the following domains in an internet address, the site is probably reliable:: 
    .edu (US higher ed)
    .sch (school - used outside of US)
    .k12 (most US school sites)
    .gov (US government (add country code for outside US)
    .ac (higher ed outside of US, usually with country code, 

         example: .ac.uk

    .mil (US military)
        NOTE:  On Google's Advanced Search page, you can type any of the above in the bar next to "Domain" to eliminate any .com or personal website hits.

* The following may indicate you're on a personal website:
    ~ (tilde sign)
    % (percent sign)
    the word "user" or a personal name "jdoe" is in the    address after the domain name and the first forward slash "/"

*  Try using the “Advanced Search” tool which can be found in databases, Google, Yahoo, etc., to better target your search.

*  Go to "Google Web Search Features" and try the shortcuts offered for searching.

*  If you’re not having luck in databases, try scholar.google.com or academic.live.com designed for academic searching.

* If you can't find the owner or publisher of a website, go to easywhois.com and enter the URL of the site you would like to research.

* To see where a website ranks, go to alexa.com

      * To see what other websites link to a site you're researching, type "link:URL address" in Google's search bar.

       * To obtain a word's definition, type "define" in front of a word in Google's search bar.

       * To use Google as a calculator, type a problem in Google's search bar.

* If you want current news articles, only minutes or hours old, go to Google's news.google.com.  For older news articles, go to the databases listed under "Newspapers and Magazines" or "Combination of Books, Newspapers and Magazines" on Como's "Reliable Online Resources" webpage.  Other websites for finding articles are magportal.com and findarticles.com.

*  Branch away from Google and try using other search engines:

      - Turboscout (http://turboscout.com) allows you to search many search engines without having to switch pages or retype your search term.

      - Intelways (http://intelways.com) is set up by different media types and can retrieve information from multiple sources.

      - Trovando ( http://www.trovando.it) allows you to search 250+ search engines with one search term.

      - Zuula (http://zuula.com) is a quick and convenient way to get results from all the top search engines. Checking multiple search engines will give you the best results, and Zuula makes it easy.

Have you ever wondered why some websites appear first in a Google list of search hits?  This 4 minute Google video provides some answers and shows why .edu or .ac may be more reliable for research info than .com:

(The above video was found on Google Videos along with the following description: "Internet marketing guru and CEO of Prime Visibility speaks with the Google Boys regarding Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. Includes pay per clicks and organic search engine optimization.")

Finally, below is a PowerPoint presentation created by Joyce Valenza to help you determine whether or not the website you're visiting is reliable and reputable: