Saturday, April 12, 2008

Search Operators Help Modify your Results

Here's some tips to make your search more effective, hopefully these will help you find what you're looking for.

Omit
If there's a word you DON'T want to show up when you search, simply enter '-' followed by your search term. For example, you're searching for Hillary, but Cankles keeps coming up, simply enter this query: Hillary -Cankles. And your search will not return results that include 'Cankles'.

Return as Specified
This operator is especially useful when searching for a person (or stalking said person). Simply surround your query in quotes and it will only return sites that include your search phrase exactly how you entered it. When not in quotes, your search will return sites including whatever terms you've entered, just not in any particular order.
Example, "Nicholas Kamm"

Define:
If you need the definition of a word or term, simply preface it with 'Define: '
Example, Define: Ankle (Cankle isn't a real word, it didn't return anything... Darnit!)

Link:
Have a website, blog, myspace, or any web address that you call your own? Find out if any other websites are linking your site by prefixing your address with 'Link:'
Example, 47squared.blogspot.com

These aren't all of the operators, just the ones I find most useful, to see all of them see Advanced Google Search Operators. If you don't consider yourself savvy enough to use these operators, simply use Advanced Search, and it will walk you through the process.

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