The University of South Carolina Beaufort

"People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up."
--Ogden Nash, Will Consider Situation, 19??

You probably typed only one term, and it was pretty common. Think of some synonyms. Try adding at least two more specific terms to your string.

You're probably searching in the wrong place or your search is too narrow. Maybe you didn't configure your search correctly. Maybe the information you seek isn't on the Web. Try omitting some of your search terms. Try your search on another engine, metasearcher, directory, people search, or specialty resource. Ask for help.

This message tells you that the file you seek has been moved, removed, or renamed. Go back to the search engine and do a phrase search or a field search on the title. Try shortening the URL to see if the file might still be on the same server. Try your search on Google, which maintains cached copies of pages.

This message tells you that your browser can't locate the server (i.e. the computer that hosts the Web page). It could mean that the network is busy or that the server has been removed or taken down for maintenance. Check your spelling and try again later.

The server you are attempting to contact may be offline, may have crashed, or may be very busy. Try again later.

Try guessing, experimenting with different top-level domain names by using the name, brief name, or the acronym. Many organizations use one of these in their URL.

EXAMPLE: www.dell.com (for Dell Computers); www.redcross.org (for the American Red Cross)

Note: This doesn't always work. You won't find the American Medical Association this way. The "ama" acronym was grabbed first by the American Marketing Association, so their URL is: www.ama.org, while the American Medical Association had to settle for www.ama-assn.org. However, it is worth a try.

Finally, if you are using FireFox as your browser or your browser is a recent Netscape upgrade, type in the word or phrase without anything else and, if Firefox or Netscape can, they will match it and take you to the site automatically.

For more information on error codes, go to About.com's Decoding Error Messages and read the column.

Field Searching Ask

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Last updated by E. Chamberlain, Thursday September 07, 2006