Hundevad Productions

A laymen’s guide to searching the internet.

A common misconception people have when they search for results is the first find first truth mentality, your first answer found on the internet is usually the truth. This is generally accepted and, well, true because of how the search engine works. Though, that is another common misconception people have when thinking about the internet. Think of the internet as a bunch of computers sharing data together, the search engine is a giant data tool, it saves peoples’ searches and pools it all together to become a more efficient search engine. We all know the search engine saves our history but it actually uses this history to provide “better” search results in the future. (This is why the engine will try to auto guess your search inquiry while you are typing it.) It is important to emphasize the engine word, much like a car, it needs directions; the engine only allows the car to move, the driver gets the results. The search engine is but only the tool, not the solution. If one is always searching up conspiracies about food pesticides and FDA regulations, spooky stories about the CIA, crop circles, and chem trails – then there is a recall of onions and you want to search this up – the search engine will actually bring up conspiracies of the recall of onions. This is why we can just type in ‘food near me’, ‘director iron man’, or ‘capitol of Congo’ and get a correct answer. Other people before you have searched these inquiries in some conjuration of words and led to the same website, article, or truth-sayer. In fact, “in an average day, less than 12% of all searches are completely novel,” (Click This To Fact Check ) People have searched for the director of Iron Man before using similar words so the engine shows you the most popular results. People can be misguided by this though when trying to find answers to their internet searches; it is important to understand how the internet searches in order to be more efficient in your searching.  So how do you become a more efficient searcher?

Specificity is key. When you are searching for a specific answer, you need specific words to search for it. I heard a song on a social media video that I liked and I couldn’t find it in the comments, so I had to search for it. The more vague the worse, it’s important to know how to search for something, knowing how to use the vagueness to your power. Did you know you can use tools to help your search engine be a better… well tool? Quotations, hyperlinks, punctuations, all of these will help tremendously with your search results. This is how the song was found, putting the words I heard in quotations with the word ‘song’ and some descriptive adjectives like ‘female singer’ and some trial and error I found it rather easily. In SearchReSearch, Dan Russell explains a good bit about how specificity can maximize the efficiency of your search results, or it can also devastate your search results by cornering you to your specific search words. He wanted to find the Carolina Parakeet drawings from a specific source, Audobon, but was having difficulties. Changing his words around and using different words helped his search. (Click Here For Context). Knowing what to type in to search helps find your goal, like finding an obscure song you only know two verses too. The specifics of the singer and the genre of music helped me narrow down my search rather than just typing in the lyrics which brought up a whole slew of nothing to do with music. However, knowing what to type in to search is only half the battle, knowing how to critically analyze your searched results is what gives you credibility and authority in your answers. 

When we see the first answer that pops up when we search for ‘director Iron Man’ we see it’s Jon Favreau and we know it’s true because we really just needed to be reminded of it. This is the first find first truth mentality. Remember most searches have already been done, so the engine is aware of what you want to know. It doesn’t discern what the truth is though. Only humans can do that. The search engine is just a tool that brings up results based on your search words. This is why it is important to double check your answers by checking multiple sources, and more importantly, understanding your sources. (Wikipedia and IMDB told me so, so it must be right, kind of thing.) Websites are used differently based on if they are .com, .net, .org, or some other variation. It is also important to understand the differences between them. (Here’s a quick guide to each ) Likewise, based on your intended searches you may find things like .uk, .dk, .de, .au, or similar. These mean they originate from a certain country, the website is hosted by that country: United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Australia, respectively. This could help or hinder your search results based on if you are trying to find something specific to a location. Relevancy of time is just as important, if you want to find a specific answer about a specific time period you must look at the date published. Flashback to the Scientific American link I shared earlier, the capitol of Congo has changed over history so the answer has changed dependent on the time. Your answer is dependent on your question, and your search results are dependent on your search words. ‘Capitol of Congo’ searched will give you a different answer than ‘Capitol of Congo 1800s’ even though “Congo” wasn’t what it was called in the 1800s. Again specifics matter when searching the internet, and credibility matters. The search engine is but a tool used and manipulated by all of its users, playing a role on how it searches. The most searched topic, the most clicked on, is the most popular answer, but it is not always what you are looking for, so avoid the first find first truth mentality. Understanding how to search for something, opens the doors to maneuvering efficiently across the internet. Specificity matters in your word search, use it to your advantage, using different words will either broaden your net or narrow your search down. Knowing what websites are used for what purposes, and what is secure is absolutely necessary in todays times. Purchasing from a secure website, (htmls vs. html) reading news from a credible source, or finding an answer relevant to your question is essential to internet life these days. With these three tactics we can help better ourselves on the internet, and provide more efficient and productive search results.