8+ Symbols And Phrases To Refine Your Google Search

We Google everyday information about everything. Any question can be answered, any idea can be found, and all at our fingertips as we sit at home. A quick Google search is the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind when they need an answer to a question. students, teachers, parents and children. Google is available to everyone, and we all know how to use it ... Or not?

We all know that in order to find images of birds, we only type in bird images in Google. If you want to know how to make pancakes, type Pancake Recipe in the search box. What about more complex Google searches? What if we don’t just need any pancake recipe, but specifically without eggs, dairy or gluten? How do we filter thousands of results to find the one answer we need? Here we find our answer. Here are some Google Search Tips we didn't know.

Getting Started: Symbols and Phrases That Help Search

When we work on something as broad as Google, we need to have something to help narrow down our search parameters. The necessary symbols and keys will help you find what you need. Here is a list of important:

1. - (negative match)

- key helps narrow down the results by letting us choose the part or specification we don’t want to appear in the search. For example, if we want to search for volcanoes, but only want our results to show only active volcanoes, we type in volcano sleep mode. This would give us results that are specifically related to active volcanoes, and would remove all results from dormancy.

Another example might be to look for chocolate chip cookies but don’t want to use chocolate chips in any way. We write chocolate biscuits -chocolatechip and in the recipe we only get search results without chocolate chips.

2. * (Wildcard)

The Asterisk (*) key works in the same way as the filler. If we’re looking for a quote or song title and know most of the words, but we’re not quite sure about everything, then this key will help us. For example, if we know a paragraph with the words "My Life" and "you," we write the word "My Life * you." This will allow Google to fill in the missing word and we will find the word we need.

This key also works when we do not know the format of the name or date. For example, if we search for a date but do not know the day of the month, we can search for "Election Day, November * 2017", which will return the exact date.

3. inurl: (at URL)

Typing inurl: next to a word means that the word we type is added to the URLs of all search results. There must be no spaces between Inurl and typing the word. For example, inurl: a boat crash would give us the result that "boat" appears in the URL, but "crash" can appear in any article, like a regular Google search.

To get all the words in your search URL, type allinurl: boat capsizing. By typing allinurl: all words, regardless of space, will appear in the URL.

4. Site (:)

Adding a site: can help us either view only a specific site or exclude a site we don't want to use. It's important to note that there must be no spaces between the site: and the website name, otherwise the Search Parameters will appear as we like. For example, if we’re looking for a recipe and already know we only trust New York Times recipes, we put up mac and cheese sites: newyorktimes.com. This way, only the mac and cheese recipes for that website will appear.

On the other hand, if we want results on any website except one or two, then the site: can help us too. Suppose we do research on paper and accept all the results, with the exception of the results from Wikipedia, we write to the data-site: wikipedia.com. This way, we don’t have to sort data that we’re not going to use anyway.

5. Related:

Related: Works by giving us results similar to what we type in the search bar. The best way to use this tip is to add the URL we want related results to. For example, related to: barnesandnoble.com gives us results that refer to other booksellers or bookstores, but Barnes and Noble do not include them.

6. ”” (sentence search)

Quotation marks are wonderful keys that give us exactly what we are looking for. If we write “How to Start Knitting Socks,” we get results that include all those words in that order. In this way, the results are better matched to what we really need. If we omit the quotation marks, we would also have results from knitting, socks, beginnings, starting knitting, and general instructions.

When looking for a person, quotation marks are also a good tool, but we only know what we are looking for. 

Note: Ernie S. Twinning does not refer to a specific person, place, or situation.

7. .. (area)

Two adjacent dots (..) mean that we want to search in the number range. If we are looking for a camera price between $ 200 and $ 600, we will invest in a search engine camera for $ 200 to $ 600. All of our results would then end up in our price range. This also works in exploration for years.

8. OR and | (Combine searches)

When we want to combine searches or are looking for something that can have multiple names, typing OR helps us get more results with less work. If we were looking for something that tells time, everything that would do so, we would type the search bar into the clock OR the clock. In this way, all products that match the search parameters are displayed. Another way to write it would be to watch clock, in either form we would get the same results.

9. + (Advanced Search Editor)

In 2011, Google removed the + sign and simplified the properties of quotation marks. Behind the whole + was that we could search for any particular word that the quotation marks do to us instead.

The next time you open that Google search bar, we’ll be more specific, accurate, and confident in our searches. The new side of Google is open to us!