Dear Ms Techie
I’m always searching for stuff on Google (who isn’t?), but sometimes I’ll be searching for particular things and they don’t come up. Do you have any tips for getting better search results?
Thanks, Searching for Answers
Google’s a fantastic source of information, but with so much information, it can be hard to find what you want. Here are a few tips to help you narrow down your search.
If you’re searching for a particular phrase, or the order of your words matter, put quotations around your search terms. This will let Google know that you want to search for that exact phrase.
For example: “Leaders in Heels”
Explore our collection of award-winning planners and journals that encourage leadership, goal-kicking, passion and motivation, with elegant designs that can be personalised.
If you’re seeing quite a few hits that have a keyword that you’re not interested in, let Google know you want to ignore that keyword by putting a minus sign before the word.
For example: interview tips -questions
If you have an idea of what the URL should look like, you can filter based on the URL. Simply include inurl:something with your search term.
For example: entrepreneur inurl:gov.au
Similar one to the above is to restrict your search within a site by including site:example.com in your search term.
For example: site:lhagenda.com technology tips
If you’re specifically looking for an image, you can use Google’s image search. But what if you want to look for a document? Google’s got that covered too, just add filetype:ext to your search term.
For example: “resume tips” filetype:pdf
As you may have realised, you can combine all of the above to craft a very precise search. Google lets you narrow down even further with “Search tools”. With this, you can narrow it down to a time frame (e.g. Past month) to make sure you get relevant and current results.
There are a lot more useful tricks that will make you like Google search even more. Try searching for: time san francisco, define:defenestrate, do a barrel roll, 1 aud in usd, graph sin(x)
Need more help managing the stress of life? Meet your everyday organisational support to build mental wellbeing and resilience through positive habits and daily rituals. Fit mind = fab life.
For a complete list of tips and tricks, check out: http://www.google.com/intl/br/
Featured Image Credit: slimjim
Miss Techie, aka Peggy Kuo, is a programmer who is currently developing a mobile game. She’s also presented at Ignite Sydney. You can see what she’s up to at her website.