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About.com is one of the most popular destinations on the Web. More than 750 subject experts called "Guides" maintain sites on their topic areas, writing articles, publishing newsletters, and interacting with their community. I was the Web Search Guide for three years, until March 2001.

Most of these articles were written between early 1998 and mid-2000. Most contain links which have not been checked.

Web Search 101
An introduction to the basics of effective Web searching. Learn about the difference between search indexes and directories, how they're built and how they work.

Smart Searching
The phrase "work smart, not hard" can be applied to searching the Web. Smart Searching is an approach that will help you save time and get better results from your Web searches.

Specialized Search Engines
Once you've got a feel for the general-purpose search services, you can begin to use specialized search engines to reduce 'noise' in your search results.

Search Help & Search Tutorials - Net Links
A compilation of some of the best searching help and tutorial Web sites available on the Internet.

Web Search Myths
Many popularly held beliefs about searching and search engines are simply untrue. We debunk the most common Web search 'urban legends.'

Choose the Best Search Engine
Should you use Excite or HotBot? AltaVista or InfoSpace? Here's how to choose the best search tool for any topic, by analyzing your needs and comparing them with the strengths and weaknesses of each search service.

Smart Searching: Web Search Strategies
How to improve your search results by using five powerful Web search strategies. You'll wish you had known about these sooner!

Smart Searching With AltaVista
We take a look at AltaVista's powerful advanced search capabilities, and show you numerous tricks and tips to sharply improve your search results with this huge Web index.

Smart Searching With HotBot
HotBot's search refinement tools are among the most powerful of any major search engine. We take you under the hood and show you how to take power searching to a new level.

Search Tips & Tricks - Net Links
Techniques for structuring power searches, using advanced search tools, filtering results, and more.

Seven Habits Of Effective Searchers
Master the art of finding anything on the Web with these seven habits of highly effective searchers.

Super Searchers' Search Secrets
Tips, secrets, and great Web searching advice from four internationally recognized Masters of the Internet, all of whom are published authors on the subjects of search engines and Web searching.

Web Search Software Utilities
We review a number of products that search the Web directly from your PC, allowing you to search multiple sources simultaneously, save your favorite searches to disk, and perform numerous other functions search engines can't match.

Keeping Current With the Web
It's one thing finding information on the Web. But thousands of new pages are added to the Web every day. Here's how to stay up to date with new and notable Web sites without getting swamped by information overload.

Web Search 'Round The World
Don't limit yourself to the major search engines, which primarily index North American and European Web sites. We test drive regional search engines all over the planet, from 123India and ArabSeek to VietSearch and WoYaa! African Search.