Searching for Web Pages

Internet Explorer gives you three ways to search the Web:

• Simple convenient searches from the Address box

• More complex searches, using a variety of search engines, from the Search Companion Explorer bar

• Searches from the web site of whatever search engine you like

Searching from the Address Box

The simplest way to search the Web is to type a question mark followed by a word or phrase into the Address box and press ENTER. (Be sure to leave a space after the question mark.) By default, Internet Explorer uses the Microsoft Live Search tool for Address bar searches.

Using the Search Bar

The Search bar allows you to search not just for web pages, but for addresses, businesses, maps, words, pictures, and newsgroups. It is the same Explorer bar that you use to search for files and folders within Windows Vista and Windows Explorer. The general aspects of the Search bar are discussed in Chapter 9.

To look for a web page, type a question or some keywords into the Live Search box and click the Search button.

Changing Internet Explorer's Default Search Engines

By default, Internet Explorer uses the Live Search engine for searches from either the Address box or the Explorer bar. You can change search engines by clicking the drop-down arrow on the Live Search bar and choosing Find More Providers. IE searches for supported search providers and displays them in the IE viewing area. Figure 26-5 shows the search engines we found.

Figure 26-5: Finding additional search providers for IE.

Click a search link (we like Google, so we clicked the Google link). The Add Search Provider dialog box appears. Click Add Provider. Continue clicking search links to add them to your search providers menu. If you want to set a search provider as a default, click Make This My Default Search Provider in the Add Search Provider dialog box. Or, when you finish, you can set a different default by clicking the drop-down arrow on the Live Search bar, choosing Change Search Defaults, selecting a search provider in the Change Search Defaults dialog box, and clicking Set Default.

Tip  

No matter what search engine Internet Explorer wants to use, you can always go to the web site of your favorite search engine and use it directly-we like http://www.google.com.