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#18 Search Google More Effectively

January 21, 2011

While most people are familiar with “Googling” to find information, Google has many powerful tools that people are not familiar with. Learn to harness the power of Google to search for specific phrases, within specific websites, omit specific words, and more.

While most people are familiar with “Googling” to find information, Google has many powerful tools that people are not familiar with. Learn to harness the power of Google to search for specific phrases, within specific websites, omit specific words, and more.

Here are a few useful tips to help you more efficiently search with google. Try these techniques to get more out of your searches.

  1. Explicit Phrase: To search for a very specific phrase on google, surround your search in quotation marks; 
    Example: “internet marketing”

  2. Exclude Words: Sometimes, you will want to exclude specific words from your google search. To do this, put a minus (-) sign in front of the word(s) that you want to exclude;
    Example: internet marketing -advertising

  3. Site Specific Search: Google also allows you to restrict your search to a specific web site. To do this, add “site:” and then the site you would like to search, with no spaces;  
    Example: “internet marketing” site:www.smallbusinesshub.com

  4. Similar Words and Synonyms: If you would like google to search all similar words and synonyms for the words that you are searching, use the (~) symbol.
    Example: “internet marketing” ~professional

  5. Specific Document Types: Google search can also search for specific file extensions or file types. To do this use the “filetype:” modifier. 
    Example: “internet marketing” filetype:ppt. This will search for only PowerPoint files.

  6. This OR That: You can use the OR operator (must be capitalized) to search for one or more terms. 
    Example:  internet marketing OR advertising

  7. Word Definitions: If you need to quickly look up a word, you can use the “define:” command. 
    Example: define:plethora.

  8. Calculator: Google can also be a calculator if you do not have one available. Simply type your equation into the search bar. 
    Example: 48512 * 1.02

 

For more information on Google search, visit the links below.