By: Santo
Millions of people use Google search every day for a variety of reasons. Students use it for school, business people use it for research, and millions more use it for entertainment. But most people may not be using Google search to its full potential. Effective searching is a powerful skill. Think about how often you jump over to Google to look something up during your day. If you understand the nuances of a search engine, you have the ability to find what you’re looking for quickly, and potentially find information you may not have specifically thought about but adds value to your query.
Like most of us, I’ve been frustrated by unsuccessful searches; sometimes it’s just very challenging to find the right combination of keywords and phrases. Have you reviewed the tips provided by Google for doing better searches? If you’re like me, you probably use Google many times a day. But chances are, unless you’re a technology geek, you probably still use Google in its simplest form.
If your current use of Google is limited to typing in a few words and changing your query until you find what you’re looking for, I’m here to tell you that there’s a better way — and it’s not hard to learn. Here is a list of the most effective methods for searching Google to help you find the precious material you’re looking for in just a couple of clicks.
#1. Type what you remember.
Simply put in a few potential variations of what you’re looking for, and separate them by typing “or.” Then it’s easy enough to choose the result that makes the most sense.
#2. Search using similar words.
Our language is rich with synonyms. This tip will be useful especially when you are searching facts for research. Therefore instead of typing the exact topic phrase of your research simply use similar words within “…”.
For example, if you search for the term “healthy ~food” you’ll get results about the principles of healthy eating, cooking recipes, as well as healthy dining options.
#3. How to search within websites.
If you find interesting information on a website and want to share it with your friends and the need comes for you to browse it, then simply type the link of the website with some keywords.
#4. The asterisk will help you.
In order to find what we’re looking for, you can turn to the powerful “*” symbol. Just use this in the place of the word/phrase you can’t remember, and you should be able to find the results you’re looking for.
#5. When you can’t remember most of the words.
Try writing out the first and last words and putting “AROUND + (the approximate number of missing words)” between them. For example, I wandered AROUND (4) cloud.”
#6. Add a time frame.
If we want to find out about scientific discoveries during the 20th century, we can write:
#7. This is how to search for a title or URL.
To help find the key words and name of an article, type “intitle:” before the search term, without any spaces between them. In order to find the words from a URL, use “inurl:”.
#8. How to find similar websites.
If you’ve found something you really like online and want to find similar websites, type in “related:” and then the address of the site, again without a space between them.
#9. Finding something specific.
Type the exact words within quotation marks in the exact order. For example type “I’m picking up good vibrations” within quotation marks, you’ll get only those results where these words appear only in the order you typed them in.
#10. This how to remove unimportant words from your search.
Simply write a minus symbol before each one in order to remove unimportant search words from your query. For example, if you want to find a site about interesting books, but you aren’t looking to buy them, you can write the following:
