Awesome Search Tips

The internet is full of junk, unwanted advertisements, and excessive information. Wouldn’t it be great to cut down on the amount of information you have to wade through when searching the internet?

Here are some simple search tricks that will help you get the results you want quickly and easily.

Search Tip #4: Search for a Range

If you are looking for a range of results use “..” (two periods) between words or numbers.
For example, to find the weather conditions during a certain time period, you could type the following:

weather 2005..2010

Search Tip #3: Search for Keywords with Similar Meaning by Including Synonyms

Use the ~ (tilde) before the keyword to find websites with words which have a similar meaning. This will give you more search results but also give you a good start if you’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for. The following example searches for tutorials as well as guides, manuals, references etc.

computer ~tutorial

Search Tip #2: Exclude Keywords in Search Results

Use the – (minus) immediately before the word you want to exclude from your search results. This indicates that you do not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results.

Do you like pizza but just not a particular kind? The following example searches for the websites that offer pizza, but does not include any results with the word Domino’s:

pizza -domino’s

Search Tip #1: Use double quotes (” “) to search for an exact phrase

I remember a poem I read a long time ago. I really liked it but did not remember the title or the author. The only thing I could remember for sure were the words “triumph and disaster” in that specific order. To find the complete poem I typed the phrase into Google exactly like this:

“triumph and disaster”

By putting double quotes around a set of words you are telling Google to search the exact words in that exact order. Be careful because this is a very specific search – if you misspell or type the words in the wrong order you will not get the results you’re looking for.

This type of search can help you find specific movies, songs, books, or products with unique descriptions (like “4.7 liter dodge engine”). Try it out and see how much more relevant your results are.

By the way, the poem I was looking for is called “If” by Rudyard Kipling. Search for it online – I think you’ll like it