This article goes into detail about using the Internet, including how to search the Internet, how to note favorite sites, and how to protect your computer from outside intruders, which is a potential threat when you use your computer to connect to the Internet.
Searching the Internet Using a Search Tool

When you’re researching a topic using the Internet, the most common way to see what’s available is to search for that topic. You can use any number of search tools for your search. In fact, your home page (the page you see when you log on to the Internet) may include a tool for searching. You can also go to sites specifically designed for searching. Some popular sites include Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com), Google (www.google.com), Ask.com (www.ask.com), Alta Vista (www.altavista.com), and others.

Some sites, such as Yahoo!, enable you to both do a general search and browse by category. For example, if you’re doing a health report, you can click the Health link, and then review relevant stories, links, images, and other information on this topic. You can also search for a specific topic using the Search the Web text box. Other sites, in particular Google, have plain starting pages (but are still powerful search tools).
Go to a Site

To go directly to a site (whether a search site or a site you want to visit), type the address to that site in the Address box, and then press Enter.

The basics for searching vary a little from site to site, but most follow the same process:
Go to the search page.
Type the word or phrase you want to find.
Click the Search button. The button will be named differently.
Review the results of your search.
Click any of the search results to go to that site.

The results are displayed differently depending on the search tool, but most contain similar information including the following:
Number of matches: You should see an indicator of how many matches your entry matched, and it’s often a very large number. You can scroll to the bottom of the page, where you’ll see a link or page numbers that you can click to see the next page of matches.
Relevancy: Different search tools determine which sites are more likely to be what you are looking for (their relevancy). These sites are often listed first. You may also see sponsored links along the side or at the top of the screen. Note that these sites have usually paid a fee to appear at the top of the page or along the side; that means they may not be the best matches.
Site description: You should see the title of the page, its Web site address, and a brief description. Reviewing this information can usually give you a good idea of whether the site is relevant.
Search options: If you get a lot of matches (and this is common), you may need to narrow the results to something closer to what you seek. Most search tools provide advanced search options that enable you refine the search. For example, you can specify words that you don’t want included in the search, as one example. You can specify that the search results include all of the words you type in a phrase together. For example, if you type “White House,” your list includes sites that include both “white” and “house.” You can change the search so that only sites with “White House” together are listed.