"Documents 1-10 of 440 000 matching the query, best matches first."

It's not always so easy to find what your looking for on the Internet.
But with some simple tricks you can make it easier.
The following examples works on AltaVista.
Other Search Engines may have different Syntax

If you want to see the results of the examples click "submit".
To return here click the Back Arrow on you browser:

Example 1 - We want information on the American rock group "Extreme".

This search is gonna result in a number of hits because Extreme is not only a group it's also an word (duh..).
So we have to narrow it down. Ok music is a little general but is't the group's guitarist name Nuno now that's not common....

This Page is Under Construction!!!

Example 2 -

...

..

Example 3 - We want to find Millenniums official homepage.

Now we will probably get about 100000 hits.. What more do you know about Millennium to narrow the hits down? Chris Carter made it.. but that wont lead to the Official page... Yes of course! It runs on Fox and Fox's server is Foxworld Now we use the Host-prefix

Now we can find the page...

Example 4 - (wildcard)

..

Example 5 - Find pages with specific links. (link:)

...

Example 6 - . (image:)

....

Other prefix:

anchor:Next
Finds pages with link text that contains the word "Next"

applet:NervousText
Finds pages with the "java applet" Nervous Text.

object:Marquee
Looking for the AktiveX control- Marquee.

text:Bellman
Finding visible text including the word Bellman

title:"The Sweeper's"
Looking for pages with the pages title being "The Sweeper's".

url:home4.swipnet
Looking for pages with Home4.swipnet.se in it's URL.

Summary

The law of Internet Searching is: "The more information you have, the more information you can get."
Use the + and the - sign often....

Tanx to Me and Anders Lindkvist.