Monday, April 12, 2010

How to Google Better

Most of the time, we type what we want in Google, search through a list of results and hope to find what we are looking for.  However, there are times when you might want to be a bit more specific and clarify what you are looking for.

Google has built in features that let you exclude terms, search for exact phrases and even search for items on any web page.  Rather than typing up all of the different features and their descriptions, you can view them all on Google's own tip page found here: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=136861.  If you want a good example of how quotations help, search for your first and last name and then search for your first and last name in quotations.  (John Doe v.s "John Doe").  You are much more likely to find material relating to you when you use the quotation marks.  This is because you are searching for your full name and not just the words that make up your name.  It takes a bit more work, but using these techniques can save you time in the long run.

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