Why use search?

As the amount of information we need to access grows exponentially, mastery of at least basic search skills is essential if we wish to locate the information we need. In the end, effective searching means saving you time.

Forum etiquette

It's always a good idea to try to see if the information you are looking for already exists. This helps avoid cluttering the forum with duplicated requests and fragmented information on a topic. Less clutter and duplication makes it easier for everyone to find what they need. The golden rule in any forum or internet-based discussion is to always browse, read and search (not necessarily in that order) before posting a new thread or post.

Learning how to search effectively

If you've never actually learned how to search before (most people haven't) you will find this guide very informative. We have tried our best to make it as easy to follow as possible. If you think you already know the basics, feel free to skip ahead to the more advanced levels.

This multi-part guide is divided up into the following sections:
Lesson 1: Basic Searches
Searching the forum, understanding the results, refining your search for better results, changing the output - threads or posts?
Suitable for beginners or those who seem to be having trouble locating what they need.

Lesson 2: Intermediate-Level Searches
Searching within a forum, searching within a thread, searching on a page, further refinement of your search terms, using small words or abbreviations, dealing with duplicated threads.
This lesson is for those who are already comfortable with the basic search, but are perhaps sometimes frustrated when they get too many or irrelevant search results.

Lesson 3: Advanced Searches
Using the advanced search function, narrow results by poster, selecting different areas or sub-areas, more ways to refine your search terms, sorting your results, more advanced searching options, saving your search preferences.
You've mastered the intermediate level and want to find out how to get the most of the search tools available to you on the forum.

Lesson 4: External Tools - Using Google to Search the Forum
Why use Google to search the forum? How? Basics of a Google search, understanding the results, narrowing down the results, Google syntax, advantages of using Google search, disadvantages of using Google search.
Power users know how to harness other search engines to search for content within the forum - sometimes this can be far more effective than the standard forum search tools.

Lesson 5: Further Study
Books, websites.
If you feel like you've mastered everything so far, this lesson points you to some further resources where you can learn more about effective searching.