Google: Here Are Several Search Tips To Make Using Google More Productive
Here are several search tips to make using Google more productive in your everyday life.
Although there are many ways to make Google searches easier and more reflective to what you are actually searching for and many more which will be posted in the future for additional SEO purposes, the following are the most frequently used.
- When you already have a web address, you can save yourself some time and eliminate irrelevant search results from Google by simply entering the URL into the web address box of your browser to find the site you want.
- Google’s search engine in most cases uses simple nouns to locate the search results you need.
Modifiers can be used to refine the simple search, but entering too much information into the search engine will limit your search results if Google cannot find pages with all the words you entered in them.
Providing too much information in the search query will often give undesirable results.
Capitalization and punctuation marks are irrelevant in most search engines and will not change the search results.
- When you want to exclude a word from the search engine results query, ad a minus sign (-) before the word you wish to exclude without a space between it and the word and the term will not be recognized in the search query.
For instance, if you want to exclude all results for freshwater fishing lures when searching for fishing lures, simply place a minus sign before freshwater in the query. fishing lures -freshwater
Likewise a search for Cats -movie, would return information on cats without any movie related search results.
The hyphen (-) can also be used to indicate that the words around it are very strongly connected, such as in twenty-year-old-cat or cross-cut saw.
By default Google looks for all the terms you enter into a search query and bases it’s results on those terms.
- When you need to separate terms from a search use OR in your search query.
For instance when you want to find web pages about both saltwater fishing lures and freshwater fishing lures, enter saltwater freshwater fishing lures and you will get pages on both.
If you want your results separated, use the OR command.
For instance, entering saltwater OR freshwater fishing lures will provide pages about each kind of fishing lure individually.
- When searching for exact phrases, use quotation marks in your search query before and after the sentence or phrase you are trying to locate.
Synonyms will often replace some words in your original query but by enclosing a keyword or strategic phrase in quotes, you can prevent this from occurring.
The quotation marks (” “) exclude all other variations of the search phrase and provide only pages that have the exact phrase in the exact word order you requested.
- In many cases different terms are used to describe the same thing.
You can tell Google to include synonyms and related search terms to the search results by adding the tilde (~) directly before the term you are searching for.
In most cases the ~ will give too much information about what you are actually looking for, however in some cases it gives positive results.
For instance ~sex will provide information on stories, positions, mistakes, psychology, trafficking, positions, education, addiction, appeal, etc.
Searching for the term ~fish provides you with facts, for sale, aquarium, names, recipes, card games, how to, facts, plastic fish, places, pictures, definitions, etc.
Searching for ~notebooks will provide information on laptops, notebooks, portable computers, tablet pcs, etc. which is more usable to the searcher.
Typing the tilde before any single word will provide you with synonyms for that word. Example: ~arduous, ~polysemous, etc.
- Occasionally when you need to search for information, you forget the specific details in a name, date, etc. In such cases you can fill in the unknown by using an asterisk in your search (*) term. The asterisk literally fills in the blanks you forgot.
For instance if you make a search for Dwight David Eisenhower and forget his middle name, just insert an asterisk and Google will provide the correct response.
Dwight * eisenhower or * eisenhower will provide search results for Dwight David Eisenhower. On the other hand, Dwight* will provide numerous search results for the first name Dwight, including Eisenhower.
The asterisk can also be used to fill in the unknowns in a specific search query.
For example, searching for Newton discovered * in * will provide you with what he discovered in what date. For research purposes, this can be extremely useful and time saving.
- Periods and hyphens can be used in a search engine query to find information for specific dates and price ranges.
When searching, use either two periods to connect the numbers or a hyphen between them with no spaces on either side of the periods or hyphen to get information for that specific time frame.
For example, searching for world sport fishing records 1800..2012, provides information on the top fish caught during this period.
Use the dollar sign to search for price ranges using the same format.
For instance, flat panel tv $200..$800, or flat panel tv $200-$800 will provide information on flat panel televisions within the price range requested.
- The hashtag/number sign (#) can be used to search for trending topics that are indicated by hashtags such as #lifewithoutfacebook or #lifewithouttwitter.
You can also find trending topics by using the hashtag in the Google search box and typing the first letter of the alphabet behind it. A list of popular hashtags will be generated below the search box.
- The “at” sign (@) can be used in the Google search engine for finding social tags like @google, @gmail.com, @selenagomez, @marketplace.amazon.com, etc.
Like the hashtag symbol, you can place the @ sign in the search box and type a letter to see what is trending.
- There are many times when you need to conduct a search within a specific website.
You can easily do this by by typing your search terms into the Google search engine and then add site: followed by the web address.
For example; instead of going to the Fox website and searching for featured videos, just type Featured Videos: fox.com into the search engine and it will provide featured videos on Fox’s website.
- Searching for real time stock quotes is just a matter of entering the stock symbol and clicking the search button. You will instantly get the current stock price along with the highs and lows, gains and losses, low prices and other related information.
In the event you do not know the stock “ticker” symbol, just enter the company name followed by the words stock symbol and you will get the same result.
- If you need a dictionary and forgot where you last placed it, (in 1955) just type define: immediately in front of the word you need information on.
Here are several more search tips to make using Google more productive that you may at some point need.
- Converting measurements has always presented a problem for me however, Google makes it easy to convert measurements.
All you do is enter the conversion you want and hit enter.
For example enter 5k to miles in the search engine and it gives you 3.10685596 miles, if you enter 25 pounds to kilograms it gives you 11.3398 pounds, etc.
- With the holidays coming up you might need to use Google’s package tracking feature. All you need to do to track a FedX, USPS or UPS package is enter the tracking number into the search engine for up to the minute information.
- Need to find who belongs to a phone number? All you need to do in most cases is enter the number with the area code into the Google search engine and it provides you with the information.
- If you are marginal using math, use Google instead. It’s a great substitute for a hand held calculator and does almost any function.
The asterisk is used to multiply and the slash is used for division. Simply enter the problem with the equal sign and hit enter.
For example, 5280/2= or 20*93,000,000= . Once you get the hang of it, you can use Google to solve more complex equations like 200*3.1416-cos(86)= 628.703698.
Some of the search tips to make using Google more productive in your everyday life that are noted above are not commonly used by most searchers, however we hope that after reading this article more readers will discover how Google can assist them in making their everyday lives more productive.