To use any search engine effectively, you should be familiar with its search protocols. For example, double quotation marks surrounding a string of characters usually indicate that only that specific string is being searched for (NOT just one or more of the words within the string). So, for example:

will return sites that mention "John A. MacDonald", but not sites that mention "John Alexander MacDonald". On the other hand:

will yield both results, as well as thousands of other John's and MacDonald's. There may, in fact, be too many irrelevant results for the search to be of any use. The optimal search in this situation would be something like:

That way, the search is neither too general nor too specific.

For detailed information on search protocols, click on the help offered on the search engine page that interests you.

NoNonsense-approved Search Engines

Out of dozens of search engines, only those of the highest quality are eligible for the coveted NoNonsense seal of approval. Google, Dogpile and Metacrawler are convenient because they simultaneously search many of the major search engines, and then give you the combined results. This only works well with simple searches, though, because, as I mentioned before, search protocols vary from search engine to search engine. If you try to use a Boolean operator like "AND", it might work with one search engine and not work with another.

google.com

http://www.altavista.com/

http://www.excite.com/

http://hotbot.lycos.com/

http://infoseek.go.com/

http://www.lycos.com/

http://www.yahoo.com/

http://www.webcrawler.com

http://www.dogpile.com

http://www.metacrawler.com