With over 10 billion pages available on the Web, amongst the biggest frustration you will face on the Web is finding the information you want.

A search query box

A Google search using ‘internet’ and ‘business’ produced almost 782 million hits

Search engines are specialised software programs that are able to sift through the hundreds of millions of pages of information available on the Internet to find keywords that you entered. There are hundreds of search engines available and each works slightly differently. If you want to save time and money it is important that you learn how to use search engines effectively.

Search engines (also known as software robots) all have a query box: a place where you can type in the keyword or concept that you are searching for.

Examples of search results (hits)