Helpful Web Browser Tips For Searches

 General Tips

Use the Find command in your browser to find the term you searched for within the text.

Use browser custom toolbars if they are useful. Otherwise remove them for more viewing room for the page.

Maintain a useful set of Bookmarks. Update and delete old, unused bookmarks regularly.

Learn all Web browser features.

Troubleshooting

If the site is active but the link won't connect, try shortening the address path.

Check spelling. You may have misspelled a term or may need to deliberately misspell a term.

Keep Up With Information Technologies

Use push technology for sources of current information. This can be sent automatically via mailing lists, etc. Some things information-wise do not need to be constantly sought since it can be pushed to you. This is mostly useful for news, announcements, and the like.

Revisit Web Sites In Order

Click the small arrow next to the browser Back button, or the arrow at the right end of the Address bar, for a drop-down list of previously visited sites. This is useful to quickly get back to a previously visited page.

Save Or Print Links

Information from linked Web pages can be printed or saved without displaying the page. Right-click the link and choose either "Print Target" to print, or "Save Target" to save the link contents.

Viewed Web pages can be saved. Do so if you anticipate needing the information in the future. If the browser refuses to save the page, open a word processing window, select the desired text, copy it, paste it into the word processing window, edit as desired, and save it.

Share Pages With Others

Use your browsers email functions to send the information or the link to others. If away from your personal computer, use this to email the information to your personal email account for later perusal or archiving.

Find Previously Visited Unbookmarked Sites

If you remember a recently visited site you forgot to bookmark, you can still find it. Your browser history keeps a list of all visited sites. Go here to see which sites you have previously visited.

Internet Addresses - Guessing

Search tools can find a company, product, or famous person, but it is easier to use the name of what you are seeking in the address bar. When seeking a company site you do not know the Net address for, say Hewlett-Packard, type www.hewlett-packard.com or www.hp.com into the address box and see if it comes up.

Hidden Site Links

Web administrators use a file called robots.txt to tell search tools which site pages not to index. Robots.txt can be used to find hidden items on a site. To view a robots.txt file, type www.sitename.com/robots.txt (substitute correct name for "sitename") and try appending listed files from robots.txt to the site's main URL.

Multiple Browser Windows/Tabs

Your browser has to wait for pages to download, but you don't. Open links in additional browser windows/tabs to increase browsing efficiency. Read one page while downloading another or start a file transfer in a second window. This speeds up searches/surfing. Mozilla is the best Web browser to use in this manner.

Non-Graphical Browsing

Graphics, sound, and video can slow searches since they consume bandwidth and must be rendered by the computer being used. For maximum efficiency, when searching for text-based materials, turn these features off.

Desktop Shortcuts

When you find a site you want to revisit but not bookmark, place a temporary shortcut on your Desktop. Throw the shortcut away when finished. It will serve as a reminder until you visit the site or delete the shortcut.