Search engines look for "key words". These are words contained in the title or early body portion of a document that appear relevant to the search engine. Since you have no way of knowing what the engine decided, you might first try a search in "plain language" such as worms on my cypress tree. That will usually return more links than you really want.  If you have some idea from looking at your plain language search you might try a specific search and put it into quotes such as "cypress tree worms". That probably will narrow things down. When you put a search in quotes, it will look for exactly those words in that sequence. Use lowercase words when ever you can.

      If you don't come up with results at first, be patient, try again with a new phrasing or combination eg. "worms eating cypress tree". It will amaze you what will come up with different combinations.   Some engines such as 'Ask Jeeves" or "dogpile" can make a 'broad' search of other search engines (called Meta Search)  

Some search engines such as Yahoo have human editors selecting material to list.  Others such as Alta Vista list as many sites as possible.  Meta Search engines can search thru the entire web, and also search other search engines thus giving a huge amount of information.  Meta Search engines work best with limited or shortened key words.  Some  sites such as: ceoexpress.com list newspaper, magazine sources, and other search engines.  Others are a combination of all such as Google.

The important thing to remember is no single search engine is perfect!  A good search requires patience.  Try different key words or combinations, try different search engines....or even specialty engines such as American Medical Association Health Insight: or Library Spot.com.  Remember we have Library Information Helpers at our help desk as the library has many excellent reference books not necessarily listed in internet sites.  Don't forget our Athena Electronic Catalog too!  This searches for books in our library.

Finding information on the Internet is one thing; evaluating it is another. So much information is available that the real challenge becomes sorting through it and ignoring that which is blatantly misleading. There are a number of sites that provide guidelines for making these decisions. 

Jobs - Workforce Development Board for Flagler/Volusia Counties Florida.  Job Seeker Services, Employer Services, and Labor Market Services. A virtual one-stop site for Job seekers. employers, labor market researchers,
students, benefits/social services applicants.

The professional librarians at Central Florida Library Cooperative have selected and organized a large number of reference sites into broad categories.  If you have been unable to locate information using various search engines, try going directly to the appropriate site.

Nowhere is it more important to evaluate good sites than when searching for health information. Writing in USA Today, Leslie Miller describes "What to look for in evaluating the quality of a health site:

• Who sponsors the site, who manages it, and what are their credentials?
• Is the information factual, or does it represent opinions?

• Do those producing the site have a vested interest?
• How up-to-date is the information?
• What’s the privacy policy?
• Is the Web site intended for medical professionals or the general public?"

The following sites were among those recently recommended by USA Today:

American Medical Association Health Insight:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Drug Infonet

Healthfinder (U.S. government’s directory of health information)

HealthAtoZ (A family oriented site with personalization features)

IntellHealth (A joint venture of Aetna U.S. Healthcare and Johns Hopkins University:

Mayo Clinic Health Oasis: 

OncoLink (A resource of the U. of Pennsylvania Cancer Center)

Your Surgery (Uses photos, diagrams and animation to detail common surgeries and their risks.)

Ask Dr. Weil (One of the first and most popular sites on holistic health and herbal medicine with Dr Andrew Weil of the U. of Arizona.)