Using Google More Effectivly
October 11, 2013
How many times have you asked someone a question only to have them respond, “I don’t know. Google it”? Google has defiantly become one of the quickest and most used methods of obtaining answers to our questions. Here are a few tips to make searching even easier:
1. Use the minus sign ( – )when you want to exclude a topic from a search.
Example: You want to search for information about the animal, jaguar, if you just search the word “jaguar” your search results will include the animal and the car company. It you type “jaguar –cars” it will tell Google you want to exclude cars from your search.
2. Use quotes to get results that contain a phrase and not just some of the words.
Example: You hear a song on the radio you don’t know the name but you know the chorus contains the phrase, “I’m a Yankee doddle sweetheart”. If you search that phrase in quotations Google will recognize that results need to contain the entire phrase and you will be more likely to find the song title, “Yankee Doodle Boy.
3. Use the Asterisk when you aren’t positive.
Example: So you couldn’t tell if the song you heard was Yankee Doddle or Yankee Poodle, type in “I’m a Yankee * poodle * sweetheart.” Putting asterisks around the word in the phrase you aren’t sure about lets google know to look for a phrase but that a part of it may be something else.
For more tips on improving your google search results check out this wonderful list from Lifehack.org writer Joseph Hindy, 20 Tips to Use Google Search Efficiently