Searching the Web

You can find all kinds of information on the Web using the Instant Search box (New!) from the Address bar. The best way to find information is to use a search engine. A search engine is a program you access through a Web site and use to search through a collection of Internet information to find what you want. Many search engines are available on the Web, such as Windows Live Search, Lycos, Google, AOL, and Yahoo. When performing a search, the search engine compares keywords with words that if finds on various Internet Web sites. Keywords are words or phrases that best describe the information you want to retrieve. If the search engine finds your keywords in the stored database, it lists the matched sites on a Web page. These matched sites are sometimes called hits. The company that manages the search engine determines what information its database stores, so search results of different search engines vary.

Search the Web

Click in the Search box.

Timesaver:

Press Ctrl+E to go to the Search box without using the mouse.

To use a specific search provider for this session only, click the Search box arrow, and then click the provider you want.

Type the information you want to find. Use specific words, eliminate common words, such as “a” or “the”, and use quotation marks for specific phrases.

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Press Enter or press Alt+Enter to display the search results in a new tab.

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Did You Know? You can use the Address bar to search for information. In the Address bar, type go, find, or ? followed by a space and a word or phrase, and then press Enter. To turn off or change Address bar searches, click the Tools button, click Internet Options, click the Advanced tab, select options under Search from the Address bar, and then click OK.

Change Search Providers

Click the Search box arrow, and then click Change Search Defaults.

• To add more search providers, click the Search box arrow, click Find More Providers, and then follow the Web site instructions.
  
  

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Click the search provider you want to set as the default.

Click the button with the option you want to perform:

• To set as the default provider, click Set Default.
  
  
• To remove a provider, click Remove.
  
  

Click OK.

Did You Know? You can add search providers discovered on Web pages. Some Web pages offer search providers (New!). If one does, click the Search box arrow, click Add Search Providers to open a list of providers discovered by Internet Explorer, and then follow the instructions. A discovered search provider is marked with a gold star on the Search box menu. You can start an Internet search from the Start menu. Click the Start button, click in the Search box, type search criteria, click Search the Internet, and then perform the search (New!). You can find specific text on a Web page. Click the Search box arrow, click Find (On This Page), type the text you want to find, select find options, and then click Find Next.