Refining your search

How do you find the information you want when there are millions of WWW websites?
How do you find the correct website?
Could there be more than one website with the kind of information you want?

The answer to all these questions is that a special kind of program searches the WWW for you. This program is called a search engine.

A search engine looks through all the websites and gathers details of those that have the kind of information you want. It sends these details back to your computer. You can then look through these details and decide which websites you want to visit.

Now it is time to start searching the WWW for specific information.

This is an activity to try on your own

Imagine that you are going windsurfing off the west coast of Scotland and you need information on what the Met Office is saying about tomorrow's weather.

Before you start your search think about the keywords you are going to use. In the box below type in the keywords you think you might use and then check your words against the tutor's answer.