Best Web Search Help, Tutorials and Glossaries

Search Engine Tutorials

Bare Bones 101: A Very Basic Web Search Tutorial - www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/bones.html
20 lessons on searching the web, with info on search engines, subject directories, portals and gateways. Excellent for beginners, also available in .pdf format.

Finding Information on the Internet - A Tutorial - www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html
Very good introduction to Internet searching. From the UC Berkeley Teaching Library.

Finding It Online: Web Search Strategies - home.sprintmail.com/~debflanagan/main.html
A free interactive tutorial on using search engines, subject directories, and specialty databases to find information on the Internet fast and effectively.

Internet Tutorials by Laura Cohen - library.albany.edu/internet
Instructional guides on the Internet for the academic and research community - with search syntax & techniques for 18 top engines, plus how Boolean searching works

Introduction to Search Engines - www.kcpl.lib.mo.us/resources/search
An introduction, review, and comparison of the major search engines, from the Kansas City Public Library.

net.tutor - gateway.lib.ohio-state.edu/tutor/index.html
Free interactive tutorials help you search the Web effectively, evaluate information and incorporate it into research projects.

SearchEngineWatch.com - www.searchenginewatch.com
SearchEngineWatch.com is an authorative guide to how search engines work with search engine news and information, tips on using and submitting to search engines. Edited by noted search engine expert Danny Sullivan, the site offers free information to the general public. Paying members get an exclusive newsletter and access to premium content about search engine marketing. Many search engine marketers consider the premium content essential reading to stay abreast of the search engine marketplace.

Web Searching - www.ipl.org/ref/websearching.html
Written by Internet Public Library staff and volunteers. Covers the essentials of searching for information via the internet.

Search Engine Glossary

Glossary of Internet & Web Jargon - U.C. Berkeley Teaching Library - www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Glossary.html
This glossary from the U.C. Berkeley Teaching Library includes definitions for web and net terminology searchers invariably encounter while surfing the web. Helpful for getting a much broader understanding

Search Engine Glossary - Search Engine Watch - searchenginewatch.com/facts/glossary.html
This glossary from Search Engine Watch provides is a basic overview of terminology. It's a good place to start if you're unfamiliar with search engine terms and concepts, written in a relatively non-technical format.

Search Engine Glossary - SearchEngineWorld.com - www.searchengineworld.com/glossary
Many words associated with search engine promotion and optimization. Clicking on a word will display its definition.

Search Engine Terms Glossary - SearchTools.com - www.searchtools.com/info/glossary.html
This glossary is a companion to the Search Tools web site, which focuses more on the world of local web site search technology rather than the global web search engines. It offers detailed definitions that are often cross-linked to each other, with abundant examples that illustrate key concepts.

Search Engine Terms - I-Search Digest - www.cadenza.org/search_engine_terms
This glossary was created by and for the members of the I-Search discussion list, geared toward webmasters and search engine marketing specialists who want to understanding how to get higher listings in search engine rankings. It's a multi-lingual glossary, available in six European languages other than English.

Modern Information Retrieval Glossary - University of California, Berkeley - www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hearst/irbook/glossary.html
This glossary is from the textbook "Modern Information Retrieval" by Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto. It's comprehensive, but highly academically oriented, though offering the additional bonus of links to other companion resources for the textbook.

Glossary for Information Retrieval - Johns Hopkins University - www.cs.jhu.edu/~weiss/glossary.html
If you're interested in the broader subject of information retrieval, of which web search is just a subset, this glossary is an excellent resource.