1. Choose the right keywords

• Be specific, e.g. internet research portal.
• Put your most important keyword first e.g. used jeep body parts.
• Use phrases with three or more words e.g. internet search tools.
• Zero in on the theme of your query by including words you would expect to find on a relevant web page, e.g. recipes vegetarian cooking.
• Avoid using common words such as "the" unless they are an essential part of the phrase, e.g. "search more of the web".

2. Memorise These Basic Search Options

• Phrases enclosed in quotation marks (" ") are searched exactly the way they are written and will return results that have this exact phrase.
e.g.   "jump rope for heart"

• Plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words (not there is no space between the sign and the keyword) force them to be included and/or excluded from searches.
e.g.   +salt  -vinegar

• Use truncation, word stemming or wildcard options ("*"), to look for variations in the spelling of a keyword.
e.g.    wish* returns wish, wishes, or wishful etc.
 

2. Best Practices

• To avoid case insensitivity issues e.g. whether searching for "Fur" matches the lowercase "fur" and uppercase "FUR", use lowercase to find both versions. Using capital letters alone may only return an exact uppercase match.

• Use combinations of phrases and keywords with quotation marks and plus (+) and/or minus (-) signs.
e.g.  +"diet recipes" +cookbooks -atkins

• When visiting a web page you have found via a query, you can quickly check it's relevance by searching it for your keywords using your browsers' find feature.

• When visiting a search resource you are unfamiliar with, scan it's help/faqs section for details about additional options.