There exist many different cases making people use Google to search for something on the web. Sports fans look for upcoming matches and news. Students want to find learning materials, read essayservice.com reviews, etc. Job interviews, vacancies, goods to buy, food delivery services, and many more things are available online.
Still, despite the web search being a part of everyday life for all Internet users, they don’t utilize the possibilities of Google at 100% most of the time. Here below you can find 10 tips to increase your search effectiveness through the use of appropriate operators.
Quotes (“ ”)
Quotation marks are instruments to prevent Google search from thinking too much. Putting search requests in quotes makes the engine use the entire phrase just like it is typed.
For example, typing something like Knitted Cat Toys by default, Google will not take the original word order into account while performing the search for you. Adding quotes (“Knitted Cat Toys”) means that you want Google to search specifically for what is given in a particular order. That’s how you get through topical trash to find something specific. Quotes are especially useful when you want to find a book by some phrase you remembered from it, for instance.
A Hyphen ( – ) Excludes Terms
It may happen that a word has several meanings having nothing in common. Let’s suppose your word is Ranger. It can mean a particular unit’s soldier or a Ford pickup model. Normally, Google does not distinguish them. However, adding the operator excluding the unwanted term from the search will make your results more accurate:
Ranger -army
Site: to Search Specific Sites
A case may occur for students or professionals researching certain topics or anyone when they require the search engine to check the contents on a particular site. The use of a simple operator will let you do that. For example:
Leo Messi site:transfermarkt.com
Typing the phrase above to Google will let you see all the information about Lionel Messi available at transfermarkt.com and not the entire web.
Link: A Page that Links to Another Page
The latter might seem to be unclear. The “link:” operator is worth using when you need to find the pages linking to a particular page on the Internet. To understand how it works, try typing the following:
link:lorenzogutierrez.net
Then, you’ll get all the websites containing any links to this website’s homepage. However, specifying the page will narrow down the search. The “link:” operator won’t become too popular or overused ever. Still, at least students, journalists, or scientists might find it quite useful to find citations and sources.
Filetype: Define File Types
Whenever you need to find a file of a particular type in the entire web, use
“Filetype:”. For instance, students will be happy to get this operator at hand because all the existing research papers are mostly given in PDF or different doc format instead of a standard HTML. Here is the syntax:
cell regeneration filetype:pdf
Related: Similar Resources
Everyone knowing this Google search operator exists is bound to use it regularly.
Let’s suppose you’ve got a beloved resource of any kind. Wikipedia can be our sample, as we used to mention students more than once above. Whenever you get bored of the standard Wiki, ask Google to find similar sites by typing:
related:Wikipedia.org
OR – Search for Multiple Words at Once
Operators were introduced by Google to offer you searching flexibility. A separate word or even phrase is not always enough to find what is required in your case. That’s why typing two requests connected by the “OR” operator is possible. How it’s typed:
football OR soccer
The use of this operator will let you search for words or phrases at the same time. It’s a great solution to narrow the process down. If you want to find cheap paper writing you can do this by using such trick on trustworthy site.
Intext/Intitle/Inurl: Even More Preciseness
These three are similar in a sense but different in points of focus. “Intext:” tells Google to check the content of web pages to find some keywords there. “Intitle:” and “Inurl:” do the same with page titles and URLs, respectively.
Number Range
Here comes a rarely used feature again. Typing numbers with two dots before, after, or between them tells Google you want to find a particular range of numbers. For example:
Civil wars 2002..2005
The request typed as above will show you the pages with info on civil wars containing dates from 2002 to 2005.
Preciseness is Key
It’s not a search operator, but it still can be very effective. Here is a tip: think over your request before typing it to make the search area as narrow as possible. Compare these two requests:
Video card driver
GTX 1060 video card driver download
You feel it, don’t you? The results will be different, although the core request phrase is the same. The chance to find what you need on the web increases significantly with the use of precise terms and descriptive words.
