Not knowing how a search service works can reduce the effectiveness of your search. Think of several words or phrases to describe your topic. If one set of words does not work, try another. Remember that your way of describing a topic may be different from the way a resource is described by its creator or the search service by which it is indexed. Use more than one search service.
Services cover different slices of the millions of resources available through the Internet.
If you need comprehensive results, use several services. Understand how the results display. Services display results in different ways. Displays may include titles only, titles and abstracts, links to specific sections of a resource, and other features. Some services rank the results by relevancy, which may be based on how close together and frequently your search words appear in a resource.