When you feel ready to go beyond e-mail, the next step is to "surf the Web" for information, news, products, games, whatever. The information resources in cyberspace are so rich, you'll feel like a kid in a candy shop where much of the candy is free. But all that abundance poses a problem – finding your way around. Web sites Information in cyberspace is stored at billions of "Web sites" throughout the world. Each "Web site" has an Internet address known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). If you know the URL of the "Web site" you are seeking, getting there is easy. For example, if you enter http://www.congress.gov in the address box on your screen, your "browser" will take you to the Web site of the U.S. Congress. There you will find the current status of all legislation and much, much more, all neatly indexed. Search Engines But if you don't know the URL where the information is stored, "search engines" can help. When you request information from a "search engine", it travels the Internet looking for "Web sites" that contain the information you want. There are many "search engines" (Yahoo.com, Altavista.com, AskJeeves.com, HotBot.com, Infoseek.com, to name a few) that reside at "Web sites" and have URL addresses. You should realize that sites listed more prominently within search engines have generally paid the search engine for their position. Links A feature called "linking" makes it a lot easier to "search the Web". In the example above, each reference found by Yahoo appears in blue or is highlighted in some other fashion. Each highlighted word is a "link" or "hyperlink". Click it, and you automatically move to another Web site, or another page within the same Web site. "Bookmarks" You don't have to try to remember long addresses of search engines or sites you'd like to go back to. Simply store commonly used addresses in a specially-indicated file of "bookmarks" and you will able to access the site anytime you are online with a click of your mouse.   Welcome • Things To Do Online • Let's Get Started • Word Savvy Web sites of Interest • Feedback • Back to CyberSavvy.org • Privacy Statement