GOOGLE SEARCHES
You have probably been in situations where you don’t know how to get a search that matches what you need on Google, spending valuable time navigating through different pages shown by this famous search engine until you find (in the best case) what you were looking for or give up on your search. Here are some valuable tips for searching for information on Google.
Searching for an exact phrase using quotes (” “)
If you need to search for information that contains an exact phrase, put your phrase in quotes in the search engine; this makes the task easier and more specific to what you need to find. Example: “technological trends”.
Excluding a word from your search using the minus symbol ( – )
If you want to exclude certain information from your search, you can place a minus symbol ( – ) before the word you do not want to include. For example, if you are searching for information on new technological trends and do not want information from a specific country, you can write: “technological trends -USA” (without quotes). This ensures that the search results do not include pages with the word USA.
Including a word in your search using the plus symbol ( + )
Conversely, if you include a plus symbol ( + ) in your search, you are forcing the search to include information that contains your chosen word. For example, the search would be: “technological trends +USA” (without quotes).
Searching using the asterisk symbol ( * )
By using the asterisk symbol ( * ), you indicate that the search can contain additional information but must include your specific phrase. For example, “technological trends * USA” (without quotes) means you are looking for that phrase, but related phrases such as “technology trends USA” or “new technology trends” may also be included.
Searching using the tilde symbol ( ~ )
Although not very common, if you use a keyboard configured in English (this symbol is used in Spanish for the letter Ñ), it will help you search for your keyword and its synonyms or similar words. To use it, simply prefix the symbol to the word you want to search for, such as “~technology” (without quotes).
Searching using the word “intitle”
By using this command, you are telling the search engine to look for pages that contain your word or phrase only in their title. An example of how to use it would be “intitle:”technological trends”” (without the black quotes).
Searching using the word “inurl”
This search will show you only the pages that have your keyword in their URL or web address. For example: “inurl:technology” (without quotes).
Combining search terms using “OR” or “|”
With this search, you will find exclusive information about the terms you indicated. Although sometimes it is not very precise, as using “OR” can show only one of the searched words. For example: “Smartwatch apple | android” (without quotes).
Searching for specific file types using the word “filetype”
This option can be very useful if you want to find only documents of a specific type such as PDF, .doc, etc. For example: “filetype: the art of war pdf” (without quotes). It also works if you place the extension at the end of the word or phrase: “the art of war pdf”.
We hope these tricks have been useful for you. Although they are not difficult, they make our lives much easier.