Tips and tricks experts use to navigate on the web

Do not trust any single search engine. This is because most responses that appear first on every engine is either paid for or has been doctored shrewdly by online marketing folks using fairly complex algorithms. Cast a skeptical eye on the results and move to the next couple of pages instead. What you're really looking for lies beyond Page 1. And while you're at it, don't stick to a single engine. Use a combination of the popular like Google and not so popular like Teoma (www.teoma.com) and Alltheweb (www.alltheweb.com).

Think of the Internet as an ocean and search engines as fishing boats in it. In much the same way that these boats and the nets it is equipped with cannot capture anything that lies really deep, search engines cannot find information embedded far below the surface. Most searches, therefore, are restricted to one billion documents that lie on the surface of the Internet. That's loose change compared to the 550 billion that actually exist.

To get to a significant part of this information, try www.completeplanet.com, www.invisibleweb.net and www.profusion.com. Searching apart, these sites offer tools and tutorials to search smarter.

Anything that has been posted online stays online. If somebody tells you a piece of information has been yanked off, it's a lie. Head instead to www.waybackmachine.org. This site archives every webpage that appeared online since 1996. Chances are you'll find it there.