Objective 4. Search the Internet

When you know the name of an organization or the Web address you want to locate, accessing the site is easy and straightforward. When you want to locate information about topics from a variety of sources, finding sites for businesses, journals, and other sources presents a greater challenge because of the large number of sites available on the Internet. There are several Web sites with search capabilities called search engines, programs that search for keywords in files and documents or other Web sites found on the Internet.

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Internet Explorer includes a search capability called Search Companion that connects to many popular search engines. The Search Companion task pane assists in your search for topics by locating sites that may contain the information you are seeking. In this activity, you will search the Internet for topics related to student financial aid.

Activity 1.10. Searching the Internet

1.	On the Standard Buttons toolbar, click the Search button , and then compare your screen to Figure 1.26.   Figure 1.26. The Search Companion pane is the default search tool. You can select an alternative search tool by clicking Change Preferences and then Change Internet search behavior.
2.	In the Search Companion box, type "student financial aid" including the quotation marks, and then near the bottom of the task pane, click the Search button or press . Compare your screen with Figure 1.27.   Figure 1.27. (This item is displayed on page 156 in the print version) You can begin a search by typing a single word, a phrase, a question, or a statement. Typing student financial aid without the quotation marks directs the Search Companion to look for three different terms. Placing the text in quotation marks ensures that the Search Companion looks for sites that contain the entire phrase. You can see that the number of sites found during this particular search that contain the phrase "student financial aid" is quite large.   Internet Explorer displays links to the Web sites in a ranked order based on the quality and quantity of the content at the Web sites it returns. Several factors are considered, such as how closely the site matches the search phrase, the number of references to the search text contained in the site, the number of other links to that site, and how recently the site has been updated.
3.	In the Search Companion task pane, under Sponsored Links, click the first link. Compare your screen to Figure 1.28.     Figure 1.28. Sponsored links are sites that pay to be displayed as results at a search engine site. Sponsored links are frequently placed near the top of the search engine results page so they are easily seen and clicked. Sponsored links generally are commercial sites, so they stand to gain from increasing traffic to their Web site.
4.	On the Standard Buttons toolbar, click the Back button to return to your search results. Under Web Results, scroll as necessary and then click the link for Student Guide: Financial Aid from the U.S. Department of Education. If you are interested in this information, you can print it or put it on your Favorites list to examine at a later time. Financial aid information found at sponsored Web sites is likely to be loan opportunities. Government financial aid Web sites are more likely to offer information on grant and scholarship opportunities.
5.	On the Standard Buttons toolbar, click the Back button to return to your search results. In the Search Companion task pane, scroll as necessary to locate and then click Automatically send your search to other search engines. Your search query can be sent to other search engines to produce more results. You will gather a new set of results from search engines that may use a different ranking system or selection criteria. Metasearch engines may be part of this new search effort. Metasearch engines are search engines that use several search engines at once to gain the largest amount of results that closely match your search phrase. The combination of these techniquesusing additional search engines and using metasearch enginesallows you to advance your search to get results that are more targeted to your needs.
6.	On the search results list, scroll down the list and notice that there is a variety of types of Web sites included. Sponsored sites are clearly indicated. Other results are marked with the search engine that was used to gather the results.
7.	In the Search Companion task pane, click Send search to more search engines to further refine your search results. Search results are displayed from additional search engines. The sponsored sites results are listed separately from Web site results.
8.	On the Standard Buttons toolbar, click the Search button to close the task pane, and then click the Home button . The Search Companion task pane closes and Internet Explorer displays the home page that is set on your computer.

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Objective 5 Save and Print Web Pages