Elegant Ways to Google better

 

Google is a pretty amazing search engine. But, even the all-powerful Google can sometimes fail to find the information you want in the vast, never-ending vacuum of cyber-space. sometimes, the search engine returns results that are not at all related to what you have in mind. There are certain tricks you can use to overcome the odds, and get Google to find the droids that you’re actually looking for. Here are a few tricks 

Use Quotation Marks to Find ExactPhrases

 Google is a Boolean search engine. “Boolean searches” allow you to combine multiple words and phrases to limit, widen, or define your search. Google and most of the other Internet search engines default to Boolean search parameters. So, when you type in a search query, say something like Are the droids in Mos Eisley, the search engine technically searches for pages that contain: Are AND the AND droids AND in AND Mos AND Eisley. If you’d like to find sites that contain the phrase exactly as you’ve typed it, search the phrase in quotation marks, like this: “Are the Droids in Mos Eisley?” Play around with that and see how that impacts the results.

Use a Dash to Exclude a Word FromYour Search Query

If your search phrase is pulling up results that are not relevant to what you’re actually looking for, you can use a dash to exclude them from your search. When you search on the word “droids,” for example, Google is probably going to think you’re looking for information about Android operating system or a Smartphone. You’ll have better search results when you exclude the words that might interfere with Google’s ability to understand your true intentions. For example: Droids -Smartphone. That little adjustment will make a difference in your search results. At the very least, you won’t have to scroll through all the results that have nothing to do with the Droids you have in mind.

Use a Tilde to Include Synonyms ofYour Search Terms

 To find exactly what you’re looking for, you may need to cast a much bigger and wider net. If you put a tilde before one of your keywords, Google will also include that word’s synonyms in its search, allowing you to get the results you didn’t even know you were looking for. A search for ～Were those the droids I was looking for? would also find out if those were the robots, cyborgs, or automatons you were looking for.

Search Within a Website For SpecificPages

  Most sites have a search function within them that is supposed to find content on the site, but, more often than not, those widgets aren’t very helpful. They don’t always find everything on the site. Luckily, you can use Google to search those sites for you. All you have to do is type “site:”  followed by “intitle:” and then the keywords you want to look for. Say for example you need to find a new job, you could type: site:taleo.net intitle:careers.