Yahoo Tips and Tricks


Yahoo is a major search directory, and the health section is pretty huge. There are certain features of Yahoo searching, which may not strike someone who is new to web browsing. We present these features:

1. The Yahoo site is really like a library catalog - with subject headings. Each major section has areas, sub-directories and further sub-directories. Sites are classified under one or more categories.

2. Some sub-categories can fall under more than one category. In this case, they are "physically placed" in one area under a category, and then placed "virtually" under another category.

For example if you go to Yahoo - Health, "Job and Employment Resources" is a subcategory. This is a "virtual" category, and really falls under "Business & Economy, Business to Business, Health Care". How do we know this?

If you look at the link "Job and Employment Resources" you will find an @ sign next to it. This means that it is physically located elsewhere. To find out where - just point your cursor to this, and you will see the real location at the bottom left of your computer screen.

What is the need for more than one location - you may ask. Very often information may be in one category but related (and much needed) information may be available in another category. And this method of categorization helps you broaden your search for information.

Example - Go to Yahoo / Health / Medicine - and click on Journals. You find further categories and a list of journals at the bottom The list contains journals which do not have further medicine categories yet. But choose one of the categories (eg - Radiology), and you not only get to see the Radiology journals, but you can see what the Radiology category offers by going to the location box (url box), deleting the word Journals and pressing Enter.

3. Searching in Yahoo

You could search for a term by typing it in the search box, and clicking on search. But you could refine this by going to a specific category, typing in the term, and choosing - "Search only in this category".

Try this search by typing in "Family physician" in the main Yahoo page, and also in Yahoo/Health/Medicine/Journals. Note the difference.

Do note - these mechanisms of broadening and restricting your search are all based on traditional library catalog and indexing tools. Electronically, they are exploited to make information searching much more effective!


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