Hi everyone! I’m Kelly Ray and I’m a new writer here at WorldStart. I’m a blogger and college ranking expert and I use Google search quite a lot in the course of my work. So I’d like to share some of the interesting things I’ve learned about finding what you want online.
Using Google should be second nature for most people, as it is the biggest and most powerful force on the Internet. However, there are probably ways you can improve how you search. Here are a few tips to help you search out anything from a college ranking to Miley Cyrus doing her half naked Brittany Spears impression.
1 – Keep on trying…or don’t
There are two schools of thought on this. Some people think that if you do not find your desired result on the first two or three pages that you should try another search query. Other people say that the right results are hidden away, and that you have to get through a lot of the over SEO’ed stuff first. The first opinion is probably the better option, as most web masters know about SEO, so you could spend days trawling through the over optimized pages before you find a usable result.
2 – Use the site search function
You are going to come across results where throughout you will find pages from the same website. If you suspect that your answer is on one of these pages then use the site search function. This is where you search a website for a word specifically. Here is an example using the word “Neglected”
Neglected site:www.examples.com
3 – The minus symbol is quite helpful
It helps you to remove results that you do not want. Words may mean multiple things, and this may mess up your results on your search engine. For example, if you are looking for a song that is also the title of a TV show, then you could use the minus symbol in order to exclude the word TV. You can also use it to eliminate any undesirable results. You would have to put it at the end of your search query such as in this example.
Lotions and oils, -adult, -explicit
4 – Use the advanced search settings
It has a number of features that are going to help you find what you want a lot quicker. If you do have trouble using Google or you want something quite specific, then the advanced search features will be very helpful.
5 – Alternate your search queries radically
If you run a search and get few usable results, then alter your wording and even your question radically and see how that works out. Part of searching with Google is guesswork, and you can waste a lot of time by just changing one word at a time in your search query.
I’ll have five more tips to make your searches easier in part 2 of this article.
~ Kelly Ray
Point 4 is good, but Google made some “improvements” I no longer can find advanced search. Please add instructions to reach it to the article.
Welcome aboard Kelly. This is a great place for info. I do have one criticism of your article. Athough the info is great, the samples show up so poorly in graphics that we can’t see the keystrokes used for the searches.
Ron,
Look to the right of your Google screen for the black wheel (options) under the words, “Sign in” and single-click it. This is where you will find your advanced search function. Enjoy!
Thanks Mosley! I was aloso missing that option.
Kelly! your article is quite useful. Thanks!
Dear Kelly Ray
In tip number 3 you were telling us to use the minus sign. Where do you find the minus sign? Also could you show us an example of how it is used. Examples of how to use of the other tips will be very helpful and appreciated. Thank you.