MEPX
Chapter 6 of 10All chapters
  1. 1Devices and operating systems
  2. 2Files and folders
  3. 3The cloud
  4. 4Browsers and the web
  5. 5Privacy and metadata
  6. 6Searching well
  7. 7Email and messaging
  8. 8Accounts and identity
  9. 9Information and media
  10. 10Fixing things yourself

Chapter 6 of 10

Searching well

Finding what you need.

Better queries

Use distinctive words, quotation marks for exact phrases, and site: to search within one domain. Adding the year filters out stale results for technical questions.

  • Search the error message verbatim; someone has had it before.
  • The first results are often advertisements; check before clicking.

Judging results

Check who published it and when. Content farms and generated pages now rank well, so a plausible-looking answer needs a second source.