Ways to Improve Your Search, Part 1
By Mark Frauenfelder April 02, 2008
Learning how to make the best use of a search engine is one of the most valuable online skills you can acquire. The ability to narrow down your search results to what you're really looking for can save you time and will make you the envy of your friends when they come over and you need to settle a friendly bet by looking up the answer on the Web.
When using a search engine like Google*, most people simply enter terms into the search box. If you want to learn about saltwater, for instance, type:
saltwater
and then click the Google Search button. Google will return a list of Web pages that contain the word.
But you can, and in many cases should, narrow down your search to get better results. What specifically do you want to know about saltwater—plants that grow in saltwater? In the search field, type:
saltwater plants
You'll get 1,380,000 results. Some of the results are about plants that live in saltwater, while others are about the effects saltwater has on land-based plants. To narrow down the search, it's better to type:
"saltwater plants"
The quotation marks tell Google to search for Web pages with the exact term, not just pages that contain both words somewhere on the page. A search for "saltwater plants" yields 4,770 search results, and each one is about plants that live in salt water.
You can narrow down your search even further. Type:
"saltwater plants" pacific
You'll get 892 results that contain the exact term "saltwater plants" and the word “pacific.??? You can try to narrow the search ever further. Type:
"saltwater plants in the pacific"
But that doesn't return any results, so it's better to use a less restrictive search string.
Many of the results for a search on "saltwater plants" have to do with aquariums. If you aren't interested in those, you can type:
"saltwater plants" -aquarium
Google will search for pages that contain the term "saltwater plants" but don't contain "aquarium." The minus sign (-) tells Google to exclude that term.
Stay tuned for more tips to help you find exactly what you're looking for online.
