So, you want to try to find something on the Internet. Where do you go? With thousands upon thousands of Web pages it is easy to get lost in the shuffle. Finding something on the Internet is actually a lot easier and faster than you might think. Try taking a trip over to Yahoo. A veritable Yellow Pages of the Internet, Yahoo provides listings of most major Web sites, neatly categorized under subject headings. If you were looking for information on "Oregon" then all you'd have to do is click on the subject "Regional Information," then the sub-category "States," and then finally on "Oregon." In addition to the subject headings, Yahoo allows you to search out sites by keyword. This means you could type the keyword Oregon, indicate you are searching for the keyword in a title, and Yahoo would show the listings which relate to "Oregon." Yahoo is a great place to browse the wide array of choices in any particular subject area. It is a virtual menu of some of the things that are on the Internet.

Let's say you weren't at all interested in browsing; you are looking for something particular, and you want to find it now. Then move on over to a search engine like Lycos, Web Crawler, and InfoSeek. Search engines are great for honing in on a specific site or to find something that might not be listed with Yahoo, like a friend's home page. Let's say you were interested in trying to find if I had a home page. If you were to search at Yahoo, you wouldn't find it. But if you were to use a search engine like InfoSeek, and typed my name (Geoffrey Kleinman) as the keyword, I'm sure you'd find it. Search engines scan through millions of bits of information, so often it can take a few times to narrow the search to find what you want.

It is easy to get hooked in to the power of a search engine. It's a great feeling to be on the phone with someone and quickly find a piece of information that you are discussing. And if you like search engines, hold on to your seat. Now there is a new search engine called The MetaCrawler, which allows you to search multiple engines like Lycos, InfoSeek, and WebCrawler all at once. The engine is still in the prototype phase, but I have had great luck with it.

OK, you've found what you're looking for, but can others find you? Listing your sites is one of the most important things you can do to help people find you. Listing your URL is just as easy as searching, and it only takes a few moments. For a personal home page zip over to Lycos and Web Crawler and fill out their quick and easy registration form. For InfoSeek all you have to do is send an e-mail with the URL in the body of the message. In the time it takes to make a cup of coffee you can list your home page to the world.

Listing a business takes a bit more time, but is still fairly easy. The first stop for any business listing has to be Yahoo. Before you list your company, take some time to look around Yahoo and decide in which subject area(s) your company fits best. Also spend some time writing up a brief summary of what your company does. Remember, this summary will be accessible to millions of people, so get it just right before you submit it. The next stop to list a business is a relatively new service called Submit IT. Here you can submit the same information to a large number of search services, all with a few clicks of your mouse. Don't feel obligated to list with every search engine, but be sure to list with Lycos, WebCrawler and InfoSeek.

If you're caught up in the search-and-list frenzy then you may want to take a look at two services which allow you to list and search e-mail addresses. First check out The Four11. Getting listed and getting access are done all in one form, so you don't have to go through the process twice. The Four11 lets you list things like organizations that you are associated with and schools that you are an alumni of. Some of the great features of this service are the ability to list old e-mail addresses and to have a link to your home page in your listing . The downside with Four11 is that the free searches are limited to 30 retrievals, and paring down a search can be difficult sometimes. The other e-mail search service is appropriately titled Look Up!. Look Up! seems to provide a more extensive listing of e-mail addresses. The process for using the service and being listed is the same as Four11. What is nice about Look Up! is the ability to create a customized home page listing. This means you can provide multiple links as well as a picture. At this time there is no real central e-mail listing/searching service, but I'm sure in the months to come we'll see one of the companies emerge as a key player.