Search for terms most likely to be near the beginning of the site text or mentioned repeatedly. Being specific will also limit the number of sites returned. Use the least common words most likely to be on the page or pages you want to find. Use unambiguous search terms to avoid wading through a slew of off-topic sites. A search for socks may bring up sites for Socks the Cat, foot socks, and bar fights.
Most search engines search for all forms of a word if the word is submitted in lowercase.
Limit your results by using uppercase letters if you are, for example, searching for a personal name or need information on NeXT or Java. An AltaVista search for NeXT returns 40,647 hits while one on next returns 12,290,723 hits, including every instance found by the NeXT search. Wildcards Learn to use wildcards, a feature available with most search engines. Be careful using wildcards, though. Don't truncate too much.