Tutorial; Search made easy...

[Blanchimont]

Lesson 1. You know the name of an anime but not much else...

Basics;
Do a google search, you might get lucky, and search the index sites and trackers you feel confident about(mininova, isohunt, datorrents etc...), and try searching in BitTorrent @ AnimeSuki.com (if you're fairly sure it's unlicensed...)
try combinations of the name,parts of name, any alternative titles you might know, include words like 'torrent', 'fansub', 'mkv','avi'...

Intermediate;
If you're not lucky, go visit here;
AniDB http://anidb.net/ (register to be able to view group info on titles)

Once you find title info page, take note of these things;
-Original name, and any alternative ones that might be relevant
(For example; 'Kaibutsu Oujo','Monster Princess',Princess Resurrection')
-Groups names and abbreviations
-In the expanded list of the group, the crc-hash(if it is available) for the first and preferably a few more episodes
-If it is avi, mkv, etc
-Check the comments(if any)
-How many episodes, and how far the group(s) have completed it

Now, with the crc(s), name(s), group name(s), endings(avi,etc..) etc, go make another search tour on google, index sites, trackers....

Hint; If you search with an abbreviation of a group on an index site/tracker, it will list all entries of that group (almost all, some torrents might have it omitted/been renamed, but it's common courtesy to mention the group in the torrent name(though some trackers have rules against that...))

Advanced, Groups, AniDB;
--check group info(click the group name);
----take notes of the group names and abbreviations, and possible co-op
----take note of the irc-channel(s) if you're familiar with irc
----follow all those links to see which are working and explore to find their respective tracker pages(sometimes forums with .torrent downloads...)
If a link doesn't work, do searches with group names, abbreviations, titles of releases listed on them etc; half the times a dead-link-group has at least some kind of working forums/blogs if not homepages somewhere, this is an aspect AniDB has difficulty keeping updated...
Browse any forums you find, there's tons of helpful info...

Also worth checking out;
AnimeNfo.Com
Anime News Network

Note on group info on AniDB anime title pages;
AniDB does not always list all groups that have released a certain series; most likely the groups themselves have asked their entry to be removed as in most cases the series release is still listed in their group info page...but otherwise AniDB is fairly comprehensive.

Lesson 2. You have a torrent file but it's dead/lacks a complete seed/tracker is not working...

Try enabling dht if it's allowed for that torrent
Write down the infohash(40-digit line), and search on google etc with it(some index sites lets you search with it as well...)
If any hits;
Check if any have additional trackers(you might have to download and check in the client if there are any as some 'details' pages only list the primary tracker(the first on the list))
Check if there's any working trackers among them(public trackers sometimes are overstressed so they do not always connect, just leave the torrent on for a while to see if it turns green...)
Check when it was uploaded(if it has been dead for very long, you might have to go through lesson 1 to try to find another torrent...)
Check who uploaded it(any options of contacting the uploader and asking a reseed?)
Check comments(if any), might give some info, like there might be a reason the torrent is dead and should be avoided, also if you're able to leave a comment asking reseed someone with a seed might notice...

Note; accurate stats for seeds/leechers/availability you will get first once you try it out in your torrent client, a torrent listed 0/0 in stats on index page might still work because of dht or because a tracker that previously had been down and thus couldn't give info decides to come back online...

Advanced; 'brute' tracking
If you have individual torrents of episodes of a series, and you can find a lot of trackers for most of them, but a select few, and those select few doesn't want to work, and you're fairly sure they are all from the same group(preferably same size, endings);
Try copying the trackers list of one of the working ones and pasting it into the unworkable torrent(s) to see if it has any effect...
Caution; Should ONLY be used in these special circumstances...

Sincerely, Blanchimont

Most are probably very well-acquainted with all of this, but there seems to be those that aren't, so I thought of writing this as a reference...