I often get asked questions that boil down to “How do I get better at using my computer?” Many people get frustrated using their devices because they can’t quickly find answers to the questions they have.
In fact, it’s one reason sites like Ask Leo! are so popular.
And that word find is the key.
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The most important skill? Search
If there’s one skill I recommend everyone invest in, it’s using search engines (such as Google) more effectively.
To be completely honest, it’s part skill and part patience. It’s sad to watch people search using wild guesses and then quickly give up in frustration when the answer they’re looking for isn’t at the top of the results.
Search engines do try to interpret what you’re looking for, and while they are definitely getting better, they can only go so far. The better and more clearly you are able to state what you’re looking for, the better results you’re going to get.
The two most common mistakes
The most common mistake I see is trying to be too specific from the start: including every term you can possibly think of to narrow down the search.
There’s nothing wrong with being specific or trying a naturally complete phrase or description. Just don’t give up when what you’re looking for isn’t obvious in the first few results.
The second most common mistake is the exact opposite: using only one or two words as your search terms, and giving up after getting lost in a flood of irrelevant results.
The solution: refinement
Effective searching involves knowing what words, phrases, and partial phrases are most likely to get you what you want. But really effective searching also means knowing what to do next.
Knowing how to refine your second search is perhaps more important than the terms you choose to start. It involves understanding a little bit of how search engines work and using that knowledge to pick the right things to search for next. It’s a step many people skip. If they don’t get what they want immediately, it must not exist.
If you’ve tried to be specific with your search terms, perhaps you’ve been a little too precise. Try removing some terms, or replacing them with more generic synonyms, and searching again. Cast a wider net, knowing you’ll see results that aren’t related. Rather than typing in a sentence, focus only on terms that are truly relevant to what you’re looking for.
If you’re seeing results that are somewhat related but generally off the mark, perhaps you’ve not been precise enough. Try adding some terms to narrow down what you’re looking for.
In either case, be prepared to repeat the process. Good searching is often an iterative process.
An example: looking for jewelry
My wife presented me with a search challenge1. She’d been to a craft show and saw a silver jewelry artist she wanted to find online. The challenge was this: she couldn’t recall the artist’s name; she knew the artist had a website; and she knew the city the artist was from (not local to us).
Challenge accepted.
I started with the basics: “silver jewelry <city>” (I’ll use “<city>” as a placeholder here for the actual city name). That returned a long list of jewelry and craft supply stores in that city. That was too generic and not particularly useful.
I added the word “artist”, since I was looking for a person, not a store: “silver jewelry artist <city>”. This returned a somewhat different list, including entries for classes to become an artist. But there was one result that caught my eye: a craft show in the artist’s city. In fact, it was a page listing the artists showing at that particular show, categorized by the style of art they did.
That had promise. It seemed likely a craftsperson might exhibit at shows local to her. I went to that page and located the section on silver jewelry. There were several listed, but only one artist located in the same city as the show… and that listing had a name.
I searched for “<name> <city>”, and the first result was the website of a silver jewelry artist in that city. I clicked on it and showed it to my wife.
Success in roughly three searches.
It’s about more than technology
While I’ve positioned this as a “computer-related” skill, it really does apply to anything you might look up online — even jewelry! :-)
Given how pervasive searching online has become, I believe principles of effective searching should be taught in school and made available as adult education courses as well.
It’s that important.
Do this
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Fine advice,Leo. Google search is extremely rich but the “after effect” is annoying. Big Brother keeps reminding you for months that your search is remembered. I really like the Ixquick…aka StartPage…*advanced* search (an option). It lets you do many helpful things like filter results to a domain (.org / .gov / .edu / etc.). It can also be set to filter out content that’s inappropriate. Best of all, it’s totally private. Yet, sometimes I still need Google…
It’s very easy to avoid being annoyed by simply turning off (and deleting) your previous search history by visiting https://www.google.com/preferences. You can also eliminate your so-called “Big Brother” looking over your shoulder by using Incognito browsing in Chrome (Ctrl+Shift+N), Private browsing in Firefox (Ctrl+Shift+P) or InPrivate Browsing in Internet Explorer ( Ctrl+Shift+P).
Private or Incognito browsing does nothing to protect you against “Big Brother” unless Big Brother has access to what’s stored on your computer. And if they are monitoring your computer, cookies and browsing history are the least of your worries. :-) They would probably be recording every keystroke and screenshot.
All Private or Incognito browsing does is prevent your browser from keeping a record of browsing or download history, cookies etc. It is effectively the same as clearing all of those traces upon exiting the browser. In other words, it protects kids against technologically challenged parents. :-)
http://ask-leo.com/does_private_browsing_or_stealth_mode_count_as_anonymous_surfing.html
and related:
http://ask-leo.com/is_anonymous_web_surfing_possible_if_so_cant_the_bad_guys_use_it_too.html
Mark, a toast to you, my good man (as I raise my cup of tea high in the air). I concur 100%. As I commented in another article (Stop Spreading Manure), my local grocery store knows much more ‘personal’ stuff about me than Google ever will (unless I start shopping online). When this whole data collection/privacy fiasco broke out I did a bit of research and I find that Google has nothing on me. And what they DO have, I’m quite comfortable with.
I think you should mention that with some searches, such as a name or a two word search, ie: John Smith or Christmas Sacramento, it helps to put quotation marks around the words, or you end up getting results with both “John” and “Smith” or ” Christmas” and ” Sacramento”. I know you did that in our post for your search term, but you did not mention the actual dong of it as a helpful hint.
To get started with effective and efficient searching check out three Power Searching with Google self-paced online course at https://coursebuilder.withgoogle.com/sample/course
And then follow up with Dan Russell’s SearchReSearch blog (https://searchresearch1.blogspot.com), “A blog about search, search skills, teaching search, learning how to search, learning how to use Google effectively, learning how to do research. It also covers a good deal of sensemaking and information foraging.”
Might have got better results had you searched for jewellery :)
American vs British spelling both give decent results but the better quality will be British :)
I would imagine that to be true if you’re looking for products in the UK, Canada or Australia but not in the US.
Or India, New Zealand and Bermuda ;)
My wife does the same. She figures my master’s degree in library science, even if almost 40 years old, gives me an edge in searching. And she’s right!
Exactly! Librarians are the best searchers. (My degree is in math, but I once hired a librarian to work as a writer, and she was very good at her job.)
Good advice (and thanks to Del for the links I didn’t know about). My first suggestion is to create “www.google.ca/advanced_search” (use “com instead of “ca” in the USA) as a favourite. I can type in the Boolean syntax directly, but the Advance Search page really helps to organize your thoughts without knowing who Boole was. My second suggestion is to watch for synonyms for your search terms in the initial results. If you think “ship” when everybody else thinks “boat”, you might get some good hits, but the best results will be with the more common term. I find this a particular problem when looking for help with computers – it really helps to know the exact “official” term used for the feature you are searching for. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the specific searches that drove me crazy to give as examples.
If learning how to do effective searches is #1, then #2 would have to be developing effective communication skills. As someone who volunteers (i.e. free) tech support on another site I am frequently appalled at how poorly most people express themselves when asking for help. I can only imagine these people going to a doctor and saying “I have a symptom but I’m not going to tell you what or where. What’s wrong with me?”
Exactly so! So many reviews or folks trying to be helpful are such a waste. As well as the huge amount of YouTube stuff that have little thought put in to actually make them useful. Oh yes, major pet peeve!
Thanks Leo, and thanks To Brian. I found the advanced search page here, https://www.google.com/advanced_search , and will bookmark it. As well found a very well done page on Boolean search that explained maybe why my amateurish Boolean wasn’t going very well https://help.ebsco.com/interfaces/EBSCO_Guides/EBSCO_Interfaces_User_Guide/Searching_with_Boolean_Operators
These two resources should save a lot of frustration and time.
I hear what y’all are saying about big bro and have converted my Safari internal engine to Duck Duck Go to stop the tracking thing. Google will still track if you go to YouTube from there etc. but DDG is the next best thing to the paid out of country engine with dedicated servers etc.. So that’s the one I use if I’m feeling a bit paranoid on a given day or search. What you search can and will be used against you! Dave e
Google has a support page about searching. https://support.google.com/websearch/#topic=3378866
Also remember that just because you call it one thing that doesn’t mean everybody does. There will frequently be related search suggestions that will come up with auto-complete as you are typing in your own search terms and at the bottom of the result page
Years ago, I had a computer problem involving data loss so I turned to Google for advice and the top result was an Ask Leo article that specifically addressed the problem I was having and helped me fix it. I’ve been reading Leo religiously ever since then and backing up my system and data zealously.
Can you please tell me why I have to turn off PC matic to back up my files in Idrive, Idrive will not back up unless I turn off PC matic?
You’ll have to ask the folks over at PCMatic.
PC Matic has all sorts of quirks, and no customer service to solve it. A major glitch that THEY REFUSED TO DISCUSS OR REMEDY regardless of numerous emails, was that my TD Ameritrade stock broker (the largest in the country) online trading platform was wiped out because it was not on PC Matic’s whitelist. After reinstalling it several times, I then used another computer WITHOUT PC Matic,to earn my living, and another for everything else. Finally, I was forced to delete PC Matic to function normally.