Know thy friends

In essence, the Web consists of websites, websites consist of web pages, web pages consist mostly of text.

Information we need is on web pages and we find them by words. This is the crucial point: all our web searching is about finding web pages containing our keywords. Even in the so-called "subject search" we remain slaves to keywords.

We cannot ruminate on the relationship between keywords and concepts here. Assuming that everyone knows it, at least unconsciously, we can focus on the technical side of searching the web.

Again, Web search is based on keywords. So, the first thing we need to know is what keywords are and how they function in web pages. This is covered in the Keywords section. Second, we need to know how to use a search engine to find web pages with our keywords, which is the subject matter of this Use Simulator.

Three views on keywords reveal the basics of Web search.

• Keyword - how words in a text become search keywords.
• Web page - how location of keywords in different parts of a web page influences web search.
• Envisioned result - how to create an imaginary model of a web page with keywords in place.

Once you know these three things, you can build a query describing the "model" of the web pages you need, using the capabilities of a search engine, in our case those of Google.

Next, hit the Search button, and let the search engine fetch you a list of links to web pages, each of which will match the model. You can make your query more targeted by adding detail to the model - using more keywords and phrases and specifying where they should be located in the web page.