Advanced Google Search Techniques

Advanced Google Search Techniques

• Utilizing advanced search techniques can improve the precision and selectivity of Google searches.

Quoted Searches

• Enclose a phrase in quotation marks to find results containing that exact phrase.
• "John Quincy Adams" returns results with that specific name.
• Useful for finding direct quotes or passages of text.

Minus Operator

• Use the minus operator (-) to exclude pages containing a specific word or phrase.
• "chocolate chip cookies -peanut" excludes results with the word "peanut".
• Can exclude entire quoted phrases, e.g., "peanut butter".

Site Search

• Limit search results to a specific website using "site:domain.com".
• "site:github.com SP DPL" finds the specified profile on GitHub.
• Allows the use of Google's search grammar on a specific website.
• Example: site:wikipedia.org +ancient +Egypt forces results to be from Wikipedia and contain the words "ancient" and "Egypt" but not necessarily in that order or proximity.
• Example: site:reddit.com [search term] to search on Reddit.
• Example: site:amazon.com +24v LED strip forces results to include 24v LED strip.

Plus Operator

• Forces the inclusion of a specific term by prefixing it with a plus sign (+).
• site:amazon.com +24v LED strip forces all results to include "24v".
• Ensures that the specific term appears on all pages in the results.
• Can be used to search Wikipedia for articles about Egypt that specifically mention ancient Egypt: site:wikipedia.org +ancient +Egypt.

OR Operator

• Find pages containing at least one of multiple terms using the OR operator (must be uppercase).
• "Saskatchewan Melfort OR humble" finds pages with "Saskatchewan" and either "Melfort" or "humble".
• The vertical pipe (|) can be used instead of OR.
• buffalo or bison searches for pages that include either word form
• bicycle or bike are different enough that you'll want to include both as another example
• smartphone or cell phone or mobile phone will have a much broader reach

AND Operator

• Ensure that both sides of the term are included
• (humbled or melord) and -Saskatchewan returns pages that do not include Saskatchewan but that do include at least one of humble or melord

Parentheses

• Group search terms with parentheses to control the order of operations.
• (vanilla OR chocolate) cake finds pages containing either "vanilla cake" or "chocolate cake."
• (Bill OR William) Gates" -senior finds pages with "Bill Gates" or "William Gates" but excludes pages with "senior."
• (grey OR red) (wolf OR fox) returns any of the four combinations: grey wolf, red wolf, gray fox, and red fox.

URL Bar Searching

• Enter searches directly into the URL bar if Google is the default search engine.
• Supports all advanced search techniques learned.
• Press Ctrl+Enter to go to domain.com when typing domain into the URL bar.

Domain Searching

• Type a well-known website name into the URL bar to search only that site.
• A shortcut alternative to using the "site:" tag.
• "Amazon [search term]" searches only on Amazon.
• YouTube [search term] switches the search context from the entire web to just YouTube.

URL Searches

• Find pages containing a specific term in the URL using "inurl:".
• "site:amazon.com inurl:ID" finds pages on Amazon with the specified ID in the URL.
• Useful when the specific URL is known, but not the location on the site.

File Type Search

• Search for specific file types using "filetype:extension".
• "filetype:pdf 1999 secret budget" finds PDF files containing "1999 secret budget".
• minus "Secret Service" helps in further refining results: Black Military Budgets

Text and Title Searches

• Limit searches to the title of the document using "intitle:".
• Can be combined with other tags (e.g., "intitle:Saskatchewan filetype:pdf").

Wildcards

• Use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard to match any term.
• "the quick brown * jumped over the * dog" matches variations of the phrase.
• Sask* -Saskatchewan city finds city names starting with Sask other than the city Saskatchewan.
• Cannot be used within a single word but can replace whole words or phrases.