How to Use Google Search More Effectively.

Search engine Google is so firmly established in our lives that many people got a conditioned reflex, as soon as they have slightest difficulty, they immediately address Google search for tips.

Even beginners know how to use Google search as it is not something complicated. But not everyone knows how to use Google search more effectively. We will show you some simple tricks of effective search.

Search engine Google is very smart tool that tries to understand and even predict your request. However, in order to get the best result, you must be as detailed as possible in your request in order to clarify it. For this reason there are special search operators, about the existence of which we want to remind you in this article and maybe even to introduce some of them as totally new for you.

So, let us show you in details the tricks how to use Google search engine more effectively:

Quotes

“A leopard cannot change its spots”

If you need to find a word or phrase exactly how you entered it, without any change in the form and order of words, then enclose your search query in quotation marks. This is the most convenient way to find a specific movie by its title, a text of the song by its line or a passage from the book.

Minus ‘-‘

A leopard cannot change its -spots

If you need to eliminate from the search results  all pages containing a specific word, put a minus before this word (without space). In this way you can learn what else except spots a leopard cannot change.

Plus ‘+’

Home Alone +I

There are situations when it is necessary to include some word to the text and this word can have different variants of spellings. To do this, you can use an operator + before the mandatory word.

Let’s say, you are looking for“Home Alone I” and  as a result of you request,you will get useless information about “Home Alone II”, “Home Alone III” and quite a bit about “Home Alone I”. If, however, youmake a request as Home Alone +I, you will get information only about the movie “Home Alone I”.

Tilde ‘~’

A ~leopard cannot change its spots 

The sign of tilde will ask Google to search not only this specific word but also similar words and synonyms. For example, in this case, the system will search not only the leopard but also tiger, lion, zebra, etc.

OR ‘|’

A leopard OR tiger cannot change its spots

A leopard| tiger cannot change its spots

Usually Google tries to find pages that contain all the words you indicated. If you want to use Google search more effectively, try to insert  and operator ‘OR’ (in capital letters) between words and you will get pages which include at least one of these words. An operator ‘OR’ corresponds to the symbol ‘|’. This symbol is called pipe symbol.

Asterisk ‘*’

A * cannot change its spots

The asterisk can replace unknown words in your query. For example, if you do not remember who exactly cannot change its spots, simply enter * instead of the word.

Define:

define:leopard

Use an operator define: for quick search of definitions. For example, if you try to search define:leopard, a search result will give you a link to the page from Wikipedia.

Site:

You can limit your search to certain web site by using an operator site:. This feature will help you to use Google search more effectively and quickly. E.g.:  Home Alone site: imdb.com.

Related:

This operator will help to find the pages that are ‘similar’ to any particular page. Thus, related: request in Google will give pages with a similar subject.

Allinurl:

If the request begins with an operator allinurl:, the search is limited to those documents in which all words are contained only in the address of the page(url).

Inurl:

An operator inurl: will also help us to use Google search more effectively.The word, which is located directly together with an operator inurl:, willbe found only in the address of the page (url) and the rest of the wordswill be found anywhere on this page.

Numeric intervals

Google has one more little-known feature which will help you to use Goole search more effectively. It is to find numeric intervals. Numeric intervals can be set with the help of extreme values separated by a sequence of two points. For example: Mozart 1763..1765.

Vertical search

Instead of searching a given word all around the web, you can limit your search to any particular sphere. Google includes a lot of search services that allow to find interesting information on blogs, news, books, and many other categories:

Blog Search

Book Search

Scholar

Catalogs

Code Search

Directory

Finance

Images

Local / Maps

News

Patent Search

Product Search

Video

Linux resources search

BSD resources search

Movie:

You can use an operator movie: to search for movie titles. For example: movie: Home Alone.

Music:

An operator music: limits the search results to the music related content. E.g.: music: Maroon 5 Sugar.

Advanced Search

If you forgot any of these operators, you can always use the advanced search.

There are also many other very interesting and useful methods how to use Google search more effectively but these are the easiest and the most popular and they will definitely help you to find what you search.