Another relevance test we examined is a site's ability to target the specific home page of a site. Unless you have a unique search term, use as many words as possible to describe your query. Adding FBI to a query helps narrow results to the controversial e-mail surveillance system of the same name. One of the most effective ways of improving search results is to put quotation marks around words that should be searched as a phrase. Specialized search engines and metasearch engines can be useful for narrowing your focus or casting your net wider.
Specialized engines concentrate on more specific data sets, such as corporate information.
Metasearch engines send your query to multiple search engines and collate the results. Nancy Sirapyan is PC Magazine's librarian. Cade Metz is a senior writer, Sarah Pike is a staff editor, and Cassandra Gero is a researcher at PC Magazine . Associate editor Sean Carroll and PC Magazine Labs technical director Matthew D. Sarrel were in charge of this story. Find out how.