Everybody thinks they know how to perform a Google search and they probably do; but what most people don’t know how to do is perform a quality Google search. Here are just a few quick and easy tips to bring your Google searches to a whole new level.
Search a Specific Site
site:socialmedia.uhurunetwork.com
Sometimes you know where you want your search results to come from. By starting your search with site: followed by the url of the website you would like to search Google will only return results found on that specific website.
Search for a Specific Filetype
filetype:pdf
If you know the file you are looking for is a pdf or Word Document (.doc) why not have Google narrow your search results? Simply add filetype: followed by the file extension you are looking for and then type in your keywords.
Search for a Specific Author
author:Durham
I think you are staring to get the idea. This operator will only return results written by the author you have chosen.
Search Related Words
~car
Occasionally you may search for a phrase where one of the words could be substituted with something else. For example, car, vehicle and automobile. If you add a tilde (~) to the front of your keyword Google will search for related keywords as well.
Search for Exact Phrase
“I want exactly this word or phraseâ€
By adding quotes Google will not treat each word as it’s own keyword but rather as one specific phrase.
Negative Search
-Camaro
By adding a minus sign before a keyword we can keep it from showing up in our search results. For example, I want to search for cool cars but exclude results that include Camaro – because Camaros are not cool! This way when I search for cool cars -camaro I will only get the good stuff, like Mustangs. 😉
Date Range
2008…2012
By inserting the … between the two dates my search results will only include those from 2008 to 2012.
You can and should use more than one of these tips in the same search!
Other Cool Tricks
Define a Word
define:awesome
Google is a dictionary. Awesome.
Do Math
sqrt (cos (x)) * cos (300x) + sqrt (abs (x)) -0.7) * (4-x * x) ^ 0.01, sqrt (6-x ^ 2),-sqrt (6-x ^ 2) from -4.5 to 4.5
Go ahead, copy this equation and paste it into a Google Search, see what comes up. From TricksGoogle
Unit Conversions
8432 pounds in kilograms
Can’t remember how many ounces in a cup? Ask Google.
There are more search features that can help you improve your search results, intitle:, *, etc, but if you were to just focus on these, the quality of your search results will improve immediately. Go ahead and try them and let us know how they worked out in the comments.