The web is a clutter and jumble of sites unless you learn to specify exactly what you're looking for. Cut through the clutter with these search tips. They'll work in many search engines (Yahoo, Google, Altavista, etc.)

To find words that must be together, put quote marks around them. For example, "vegetarian pizza" Otherwise, the engine will return all instances of "vegetarian" and "pizza."

Narrow your search with a plus sign or a minus sign. Use a plus (+) sign to indicate you want only Web pages that contain a specific word. Use a minus (-) sign to indicate you want pages that do not contain a specific word. For example, +recipe +"vegetarian pizza" Let's say you wanted a recipe for pizza without olives. You could type +"vegetarian pizza" +recipe -olives and you'd be returned the appropriate pages. Each search engine may have specific parameters for searching, so look at the advanced search menus for their specifics.