Useful Google Search Tips
- Case Sensitivity: keywords are NOT case sensitive, so it does not matter if your words are all uppercase/lowercase
- Punctuation: not important, so there is NO need to use periods, commas, etc.
- Word Limitation: you are limited to ten words, so everything after 10 words is ignored from your search results
- Be Specific: the more targeted your keywords, the better your results will be
- If you want to search for an exact word or phrase
- use quotes (" ") around the exact word or set of words
- If you want to exclude a word
- add a dash (-) before a word or site to exclude all results that include that word
- Examples: [jaguar speed -car] or [pandas -site:wikipedia.org]
- Search Within a Specific Site:
- Searching for a specific website, or a specific domain
- Examples: [site:ohio.edu academic calendar] or [site: gov tax forms]
- Common Words are Ignored: the, and, or, in, how, I, it, is, etc.
- If you need to use AND or OR, the operators MUST be typed in all capitalized letters
- AND tells Google that terms on either side or it should be included in the search results
- same as (+)
- OR tells Google to match any of the terms connected by the OR operator, which means that it can return results for one and not the other, or for both
- Word Order Matters: priority will be given to the first word, followed by each consecutive word thereafter
- Singular and Plural Forms/Use of Synonyms: if you are having difficulty finding what you are looking for, try the plural form, or another similar word
- If you use the tilde (~) before a word, results will include synonyms as well
- Include a "fill in the blank": use an asterisk (*) within a query as a placeholder for any unknown or wildcard terms
- If you use this (*) with quotation marks, you will find variations of the exact phrases or to remembers words in the middle of a phrase
- Example: ["a * saved is a * earned"]
- Time Frame: search all results from within a designated time range
- If you want to search within a specific time period use ".." in between the time frame
- Example: [bobcats 2012..2014]
Resources to Explore:
- Google's Guide to making searching easier than ever
- Google's search tips and tricks to help you get more information
- Google's search tools and filters for more advanced search results
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