So we all know that if you want to find anything on the Internet, your best bet is starting with a search engine. But did you know there are certain tips and tricks you can use to get the best results for your search?

Click has come up with some of the best tips and tricks that will even have you showing your kids how it's done!

We asked the experts for their advice Alex Parsons from Windows Live Search and Sean Carlson from Google [and here are their tips for making sure you get the best search results possible:

  1. Start with the most obvious search terms possible.
  2. Put quotation marks around your search terms in order to search only that exact name or phrase, e.g. "Edmund Barton".
  3. Avoid typing questions and instead use words that you would expect to find in the websites, e.g. 'Cheap flights London' will return better results than 'where can I find cheap flights to London on the Internet?'
  4. Vary your search terms. Try words that have a different but similar meaning, e.g. 'Gold Coast holiday' instead of 'Gold Coast break'.
  5. Avoid typing 'and' between your search words. By default, all searches in Live automatically include this.
  6. To find pages that include either of two search terms, add an uppercase 'OR' between the terms, e.g. to search for history in either Bathurst or Parramatta, enter 'history Bathurst OR Parramatta'.
  7. Tick the pages from Australia box if looking for Australian-specific information.
  8. If your search term has more than one meaning, you can focus your search by putting a minus sign (-) in front of words, e.g. to find pages about bass-heavy lakes but not bass-heavy music, search for 'bass lakes -music'.
  9. Alternatively, you can add the word 'NOT' before the word you wish to avoid, e.g. if you use 'dogs OR cats NOT poodles', you will get results for dogs or cats, but not for poodles.
  10. Add a plus (+) before a word on a topic you want to focus on for more emphasis, e.g. '+"Frank Sinatra" "jazz music"'. This will search for more information regarding Frank Sinatra and his relationship with jazz music.
  11. If you want to search not only for your search term but also for its synonyms, place the tilde sign (~) immediately in front of your search term, e.g. to search for food facts and nutrition and cooking information: '~food ~facts'.
  12. You can use Google to search within one specific website by entering the search terms you're looking for, followed by the word 'site' and a colon (:) followed by the domain name, e.g. take a look at education content on the nsw.edu.au domain, by entering 'education site: nsw.edu.au'.
  13. Narrow your search results by using the Related Searches box on the right of the results in Windows Live Search. These suggestions are based on the searches made by other Australians and can help you find the information much more quickly.
  14. Use the SafeSearch options to control what results are returned and reduce the chance of inappropriate images or video appearing. Search defaults this to 'moderate', but you can increase this by setting it to 'strict'. This can be found under the preferences tab near the search box in Google.
  15. "Live Search offers Instant Answers which recognise popular search terms to offer immediate, useful answers to everyday questions or topics of interest," says Alex Parsons, Director of Search for ninemsn. For example, if you are looking for a video of Andre Rieu, add the word 'video' to the query and you will get video results returned with the rest of your search results.
  16. Advanced Search (located near the search box) offers numerous options for making searches more precise and getting more useful results. such as:
    *contain ALL the search terms you type in
    *contain the exact phrase you type in

A search engine is one of the quickest and simplest places to find information, whether it's for research, education or entertainment. It can provide not only links to websites but also relevant images, videos, maps and news articles.

A search engine also has the advantage of combining current information from many different sources all in one place, so you will always be able to find the most up-to-date information available.

As Google search engine expert Sean Carlson says, "Google's mission is to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

With so much information available online at our fingertips, your only mission now is to decide which topic to search for first!