Search engines play a vital role in how we as a people find answers to our questions.

If you need to know the score for a sports game, it's online.

If you are digging up a recipe that turns all of your leftover turkey into a gourmet delight, you'll find it online.

When you are planning a trip and need to sort out flights, accommodations, restaurants, and rental cars, the information that you need is only a search query away.

Locating people with shared interests has also been simplified, eliminating traditional barriers such as location, language, and in some cases, time.

Searching for what you are looking for is as easy as visiting a search engine website, typing in your question or keywords into the search bar and clicking on the search button.

Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, MySpace, and Second Life have found their own niches, connecting people with similar interests and creating meeting spaces for people around the world who use the web as their primary location for gathering and collaborating as a community.

If you are a knitter, there are groups of knitters just waiting for new members.

If you are a farmer and feel isolated out on the prairies, farmers in your region or across the nation are chomping at the bit to start chatting about the weather, crops, and livestock.

If you're a parent with young kids, there are literally tens of thousands of support groups, health advice columns (for Dr. Mom or Dr. Dad), and websites with creative ideas to keep little hands busy and your sanity intact.

While most of us have discovered the immense wealth and accessibility that search engines bring to our everyday lives, many of us have yet to explore how search can improve our careers, training opportunities, and locating those with similar skills.

Think back to the first time you visited Voices.com (or, if you've known us longer, InteractiveVoices).

How did you find us?

The majority of our members and customers have found us through search engine results.

At some point, a question had formed, percolated, and was typed into a search engine, presenting Voices.com as the search result that best met the needs and answered the question presented initially to the search engine.

Search engines that bring the most traffic to Voices.com include:

• Google
• Yahoo!
• MSN
• Ask

To illustrate, some of the questions that lead people to Voices.com are:

1. How do I get started in voice overs?
2. What are standard rates for the voice industry?
3. Where do I find voices?
4. How do I find voice over work?
5. How do I get an agent?

Sometimes you'll have questions that are more specific to your location, in which case, it's best that you perform a search via a search engine.

Here are some examples of questions that can be answered by a search engine:

1. Are there voice coaches in New York?
2. Does such and such agency have a rep in Springfield?
3. I need to record my demo. Where is the nearest recording studio to my home (for our purposes, Vancouver)?

Search engines are truly marvelous tools that help bring information to your fingertips.

Check out this search query I just performed on Google for Voice acting techniques:

On any given day, we provide answers to hundreds of questions about the voice industry which we are able to answer via our FAQs, tutorials, blogs, LiveChat, email, Customer Care, or by telephone.

So, now that we've chatted a bit about search engines and how they can be used, we want to know which search engine you like best!

Leave a comment citing your favorite search engine and why you prefer to use it.

Happy holidays gang,

Stephanie