Yahoo is one of the more popular of the search engines located on the Netscape search page. Yahoo is a searchable, browsable, database of information on the Internet with access to over 20,000 web resources. Yahoo was developed by David Filo and Jerry Yang, it started out as a way for these two people to keep track of their personal interests on the internet, but soon grew into the larger and very popular search engine we know today.

1. Information Management:

The first step is to know what information you want to find, and sticking to it. This step is primary to all search engines. Otherwise, you can find yourself looking at something totally irrelevant, after hours have past and you still haven't found what you are looking for.

The second step is to best word the information so as to come up with the best possible results. A search engine can only work with what you give it. The key here is to be as specific as possible. If you want to find out information on black and white photography development, don't just write "photography", you want to write the whole lot, that way, your results will be more accurate and less plentiful.

The third step is writing the keyword(s) in a manner that the search engine will recognise. This is known as the sytnax, and will vary from engine to engine, but these first three steps are central to any search engine.

All this information so far speaks generally about any search engine, they are the steps you should take before you even touch the computer. The information below is specific to Infoseek.

2. Yahoo Syntax:

Yahoo has a limited set of search rules, which means two things. Firstly, it makes it ideal for the beginner to use, because it is so simple, but trying to refine your search by being more specific is a little more difficult. Where other search engines have syntax to include or exclude words/phrases such as boolean operators, Yahoo will search your first word, then allow you to search your results with another keyword/phrase. This is easier for the beginner, but can be frustrating for a more advanced user. The basic syntax that Yahoo does use is:

3. Reading Search Results:

This is one area where Yahoo is very similar to all other search engines. The results page will display:

Yahoo will only find 100 sites to your query, so you do need to be rather specific in your query, otherwise, you may find that it is quite difficult to find what you are looking for.

Now you should have a pretty good understanding of how Yahoo works. Why not give it a try. Click here to take you to the Yahoo search page, were you will find the Yahoo search engine. If you still have problems, try the Yahoo Help Page, or look at some of my examples.

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