If I were unfamiliar with surfing the web, I would go to the most known search engine in the world right? … Maybe Google? Ok, Google it is. Let's go. So today, just out of curiosity (while not doing the work I was supposed to be doing), I decided to Google “surfing the web”. Naturally, I clicked the first link on the page, called “Learn the net: Surf the Web”. Awesome, sounds like what I’m looking for. So, I clicked the link. At this point I could only think (and how can I put this nicely) the page looked…bad.BUT, on the upside, I just earned the site a few more pennies just for clicking their link… how nice of me. (my good deed for the day). Ok back to the site… The homepage is full of links… a sea of links, what kind of page is this? Oh right, a "how to" on “surfing the web”. I guess that by offering you 5 million links you’ll learn to surf the web in no time. As if surfing the web to find what you’re looking for wasn’t hard enough. I now have to surf their site just to find out how to surf the web. SO, since I’m into marketing and design… (naturally, since I work forwebshef) I was drawn to the big blue box in the middle of the page. It said “Try this… test your surfing skills with the web whiz quiz”. I thought… “Ooo a quiz.” Making sure to say it out loud so everyone in my office knew I wasn’t doing my work (whoops), I proceeded to skillfully click on the link. Ok, question number 1 (thinking: this should be easy, I know how to surf the web I found this oh-so-helpful site) here we go: Which of the following are parts of the World Wide Web? Your computer Web browsers Routers Servers Internet service providers (umm, is this supposed to tell me how to properly search the web?) Question number 2: What is a server? A software program A hardware device for your laptop A computer that stores electronic files A person that brings your food at a restaurant (eek, good thing I took a Management Information Systems class in college, the rest of you… your on your own, sorry.) I proceeded to answer the other 8 questions… Needless to say at the end of the quiz my score was a 70%. Not so good. (Hey I only got a B in the class). The best part of my quiz results was my status response which was (and I quote) “Oops”. Cute, now I don’t feel so bad. I know how to surf the web right?! Wrong. Now if you have stuck with me thus far, you may be wondering what the point of this story was… well my point is, if you want to properly search the web know EXACTLY what your searching for. And if you want people to be able to properly search your site, don’t give them junk. General questions will give you general answers, and potentially you can get caught up in something useless, waste a lot of time, and get very frustrated and even come across really bad quizzes. When searching try using quotes or parentheses on key words and caps for when you want to group two words together (for example: “surf” AND “search” the world wide web). So, lets try this again… “surf” AND “search” the world wide web …GO. First link, much better… I even learned something new. Cool huh? If your looking to properly allow people to search for your site ask the experts here at Webshef. Or search the web for the answer, now that you know how... But it’s much easier to ask us! … we wont give you anyWordsalad,only gourmet answers. Happy Surfing, Webshef
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