Typing exactly what you want in the search box and also using special characters like + and - can really help narrow your search.

Unless you narrow your search you'll get swamped by thousands of irrelevant results - and maybe miss the link to the site you do want!

For example, if you type in 'cinema' on Google you'll be given over seven million results!

The best tip to getting good results from search engines is to know what you want.

Know what you want

Before you type anything in the search box ask yourself, 'What am I looking for?'. The internet is a big place with billions of pages so don't be too general!

Think to yourself, 'What do I want exactly?' This is the first step to successful searching.

If you are very new to searching, you could even write it down on a piece of paper before you started.

Keep it simple

So let's say you want to go to cinema in Mount Gambier just type exactly what you want - don't add any waffle. So, in your search box, just type:

Don't type:

The trick is to only use nouns - words which are places, people or things and strip out verbs and common words like 'find', 'good', 'I' or 'can'.

If you find it tricky just remember keep it simple!

Two to Six

Aim for between two and six keywords in each search. If you just put in one word you'll end up with far too many searches. If you put in too many you may not find any results at all.

Try and put the most important words first. So, for example, if you are looking for information on a creche for your child near Mount Gambier type 'creche Mount Gambier'.

Many search engines expect the first word you write to be the most important.

Using + and -

Imagine you want to search for a cocktail that includes Rum, Vodka and Grenadine. The best way to do this is to type:

Now let's say that you don't want your search result to include the word Gin because you don't like it. The best way to do this is to type:

Basically using the plus sign before a word means that it must be included in the results and using the minus sign before a word means it must be excluded from the results.

What about quotation marks

Let's say you want to search for a phrase, that is a couple of words together, you can use quotation marks to stick the words together.

So, let's say you want to add orange juice to your cocktail the best way to do this is to type:

The reason it is important to stick them together is so that the search engine doesn't look for orange and juice separately. If it did that it might bring up lots of results about other sorts of juice.

Big or small letters

Often on the internet it's not that important if you forget to use capital letters.

When you are searching it's best to always use the correct big or small letter. That's because some names , like 'Bill' are actually also words like in 'newspaper bill'.

The general rule is to use capital letters for names of people, places and also books, or magazines or programme names.

Spell it right

It may sound silly but a lot of the time we don't find what we want because we have spelt it incorrectly. Don't worry, you are not the only one.

Type 'goverment' into Google. It should be typed like this: 'government' but Google finds almost 300,000 pages with the wrong spelling!

Luckily Google has a spelling checker and asks you, 'Did you mean Government?'.
It's a good idea to use an engine with a spell checker if your spelling isn't too hot.

Also, Americans often spell words differently to Australian English. The 'OR' command can be useful here. So if you want to search for pages about colour photography you could type in:

It's not just you

Remember that search engines are meant to be easy to use so if you are not happy with the one you are using - change and try another one (see our search page).

You can then choose the one that you feel is giving you better results.

Searching is often a frustrating business so if you can't find what you want don't assume it's you - it could be them!