Using the Internet to find answers

You come to Experts Exchange to get assistance with a situation that you don't know how to solve and get some great advice from Experts who work in Information Technology and other Fields that give them the knowledge to share, but sometimes once you get your answer you need to expand upon it or the answer you got has presented another situation you need to resolve.

So here are some ways I myself have found to get answers as well as when working to address a situation that has been presented on Experts Exchange for a solution or for my own interest to learn more.

The key thing you need to stay aware of is it is not maintained by any authority, so what you find may be illegal, false, misleading , dangerous and the big one an attempt to get money!  

On the Internet, there are many search engines but the ones I have found most useful are:

• Google - Most  Popular. Google also owns YouTube

• Bing - This is Microsoft's Internet Search Engine

• Yahoo! - Yahoo Search uses BOTH Bing and Google search engines to gather the results of searches

• Yandex - A new leap in search technology, a new approach to text analysis based on transformer neural networks. The new search technology, called YATI, is much more efficient at evaluating semantic relationship between user queries and web content.

• Ask - Ask uses question type searching to find an answer. Answers might be answered by others much like Experts Exchange, but often lack confirmation of authority and confirmed knowledge. AKA: AskJeeves

• AOL - Currently owned by Verizon, previously known as America Online. Warning - expect tons of ads from this page

• DuckDuckGo -  This search engine offers anonymity for its searchers and does not track users. Has very few ads 

• Dogpile - Returns all the best results from leading search engines including Google and Yahoo! Dogpile web search is driven by Metasearch Technology

• Internet Archive is the internet archive search engine almost any website that has existed since 1996 can be searched for information on obsolete information. AKA: WayBackMachine

• Encyclopedia Brittanica - An Internet version of Encyclopedia Brittanica that can give you detailed information on any subject of interest

• Wikipedia - A Free Internet Encyclopedia that can give you detailed information on a subject, but the information is provided by, corrected, and added to by users of the Internet                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
• Reddit - the front page of the internet. It has forums on just about any topic you can think of and is much like experts exchange where you get information from those that are knowledgable in that topic.

There are a lot more, but above are the search engines that can provide the greatest amount of information.

Note: To learn more about the above search engines try looking them up on Britannica or Wikipedia!

How to Search the Internet using the aforementioned websites

There are several ways to do a search on the internet.

1.)  Ask a Question: This is the most common way to search by just saying what you want to know about.

2.) State an Answer: This is the way to see if what you are thinking is correct and what else might relate to it.

3.) Type a word or word(s): This is the way to get a wide view of what topics a word relates to.

Search Tips

Most modern browsers have a default search engine already defined and you can just type your search query into the browser address bar instead of going to a specific search engine webpage.

AVOID the results that proclaim they have your solution or software to fix it for you. These are mostly advertisers that sell the proverbial snake oil that will supposedly fix it for you. Usually, it is not true!

You can put a word in "   " which means to ONLY search for what is between the quotation marks or inverted commas, also known informally as quotes, talking marks,  quote marks or speech marks.

You can search for an item by its Software Name, Version, Model or sometimes Serial Number.

You can search on a topic or phrase such a: what is experts exchange

You can search using a different word that would mean the same thing.

Use the results of a search to search in more depth about your search.

Look further in the search then just page 1, often results further in are more helpful as the first ones you see are the headlines and promoted sites where further in you find the sites that are usually created by someone who hasn't established an internet footprint that gets makes them a headliner. Try looking at the highest page the results show, and go backwards to page 1.

Do a Search on " help me search"  to get more insight into how to do internet searching.

Be careful when clicking on search results, ensure you read the intro on the site as there are many phishing and topic squatters that will try to sell you on paying for what you search for, or could be  malicious and try to infect your computer with some form of malware.