Old and new methods for the internet search expert
From quotes to AI, there are ways to find what you are looking for
The internet is an immense virtual place, and you probably do a lot of searches for info by using a search website, technically called a search engine, such as Google or Bing.
Chances are you do a simple search by entering one or more keywords in the search box and hoping for the best.
Google has a button called I’m Feeling Lucky which will theoretically simplify everything by taking you to the best website it thinks will fulfil your search.
Too often, however, a simple search only produces poor results and frustration.
Luckily, there are two ways, one old and one new, which can make your internet searches more fruitful.
One method of refining a search was developed well before the internet. As a teacher/librarian, I instructed students in using the library’s computers to find books by employing Boolean operators. These are based on an algebraic system of logic formulated by George Boole in the 19th century, a system still used in all modern computing languages.
Boolean operators are old, but they still work at Google and other internet search engines. To narrow a search, insert the word AND between each of the keywords, which will force the results to include all of them. Google does this by default.
To broaden a search, insert OR between the search terms.
To eliminate a specific word from the results and narrow the search, insert NOT in front of any term you don’t want in the search results.
Please note that a Boolean operator must be written in capitals or the search engine will ignore it, and internet search engines use a minus sign (-) instead of NOT.
To find a sequence of words, enclose them in quotation marks. This will find an exact quotation, sentence, or phrase, within billions of web pages and is a useful technique employed by educators for discovering if a student plagiarized a work or copied a whole essay. A good discussion about Boolean operators, with examples, is at The Scribbr website (tinyurl.com/29j7hbx2).
Google has more ways to tailor your search, such as searching within just one website or using specific dates or languages. Visit Google (google.ca), click on Settings in the far bottom right, then Advanced Search, and you can seriously refine a search. Unfortunately, if you use the Google app on a mobile device you can’t access advanced settings and will have to manually enter Boolean terms.
If this seems too old-fashioned and tedious, try the modern innovation of artificial intelligence (AI). Microsoft owns OpenAI, which kick-started the AI revolution with ChatGPT, and Microsoft has gone all-out to incorporate AI into Windows 11 and its Bing search engine.
Visit Bing (bing.com), click on CoPilot, and enter a few words or a description of what you want to find, such as how to cook spaghetti squash. CoPilot will give you a written summary of what it found, in one of three conversation modes, along with links to websites. On the right of the CoPilot site there’s a list of other CoPilot GPTs, such as a vacation planner, fitness coach and cooking assistant. CoPilot is also available as an app for your Android device or an iPhone or iPad.
Google entered the world of AI late with Google Gemini (gemini.google.com/), which seems to still be in development mode. Of concern is that you have to sign in with a Google account, and your searches may be processed by human reviewers. I tried a search for information about the Northumberland area of England and got fairly lacklustre results compared to the immense wealth of information that Bing’s CoPilot produced.
A nifty feature is that both CoPilot and Gemini can save you plenty of typing by doing image searches. I pasted a photo of a woodpecker in the search box and the results identified it and supplied tons of information.
It was much better than trying to describe the bird in words.
No matter whether you employ 19th century search operators or 21st century artificial intelligence, you can become an internet search expert.