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Try some advanced search techniques
when looking for something specific. Below are some examples:
The Basic
search help article covers
all the most common issues, but sometimes you need a little bit more power.
This document will highlight the more advanced features of Google Web
Search. Have in mind though that even very advanced searchers, such as the
members of the search group at Google, use these features less than 5% of
the time. Basic simple search is often enough. As always, we use square
brackets [ ] to denote queries, so [ to
be or not to be ] is
an example of a query; [ to
be ] or [ not
to be ] are
two examples of queries.
 | Phrase search ("")
By putting double quotes around a set of words, you are telling Google
to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change.
Google already uses the order and the fact that the words are together
as a very strong signal and will stray from it only for a good reason,
so quotes are usually unnecessary. By insisting on phrase search you
might be missing good results accidentally. For example, a search for [ "Alexander
Bell" ] (with
quotes) will miss the pages that refer to Alexander G. Bell.
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 | Search within a specific website
(site:)
Google allows you to specify that your search results must come from a
given website. For example, the query[ iraq
site:nytimes.com ] will
return pages about Iraq but only from nytimes.com. The simpler queries [ iraq
nytimes.com ]or [ iraq
New York Times ] will
usually be just as good, though they might return results from other
sites that mention the New York Times. You can also specify a whole
class of sites, for example [ iraq
site:.gov ] will
return results only from a .gov domain and [ iraq
site:.iq ] will
return results only from Iraqi sites.
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 | Terms you
want to exclude (-)
Attaching a minus sign immediately before a word indicates that you do
not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The
minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be
preceded with a space. For example, in the query[ anti-virus
software ], the
minus sign is used as a hyphen and will not be interpreted as an
exclusion symbol; whereas the query [ anti-virus
-software ] will
search for the words 'anti-virus' but exclude references to software.
You can exclude as many words as you want by using the - sign
in front of all of them, for example [ jaguar
-cars -football -os ].
The - sign
can be used to exclude more than just words. For example, place a hyphen
before the 'site:' operator (without a space) to exclude a specific site
from your search results.
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 | Fill in the
blanks (*)
The *, or
wildcard, is a little-known feature that can be very powerful. If you
include * within
a query, it tells Google to try to treat the star as a placeholder for
any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches. For example, the
search [ Google
* ] will
give you results about many of Google's products (go to next page and
next page -- we have many products). The query[ Obama
voted * on the * bill ] will
give you stories about different votes on different bills. Note that the
* operator works only on whole words, not parts of words.
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 | Search
exactly as is (+)
Google employs synonyms automatically, so that it finds pages that
mention, for example, childcare for the query [ child
care ](with a
space), or California history for the query [ ca
history ].
But sometimes Google helps out a little too much and gives you a synonym
when you don't really want it. By attaching a + immediately
before a word (remember, don't add a space after the +), you are telling
Google to match that word precisely as you typed it. Putting double
quotes around a single word will do the same thing.
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 | The OR
operator
Google's default behavior is to consider all the words in a search. If
you want to specifically allow either one
of several words, you can use the OR operator (note that you have to
type 'OR' in ALL CAPS). For example, [ San
Francisco Giants 2004 OR 2005 ] will
give you results about either one of these years, whereas [ San
Francisco Giants 2004 2005 ] (without
the OR) will show pages that include both years on the same page. The
symbol | can
be substituted for OR. (The AND operator, by the way, is the default, so
it is not needed.) |
Search is rarely absolute. Search engines use a variety of techniques to
imitate how people think and to approximate their behavior. As a result,
most rules have exceptions. For example, the query [ for
better or for worse ] will
not be interpreted by Google as an OR query, but as a phrase that matches a
(very popular) comic strip. Google will show calculator results for the
query [ 34
* 87 ] rather
than use the 'Fill in the blanks' operator. Both cases follow the obvious
intent of the query. Here is a list of exceptions to some of the rules and
guidelines that were mentioned in this and the Basic
Search Help article:
Exceptions to 'Every word matters'
 | Words that are commonly used, like 'the,' 'a,' and 'for,' are
usually ignored (these are called stop words). But there are even
exceptions to this exception. The search [ the
who ] likely
refers to the band; the query [ who ] probably
refers to the World Health Organization -- Google will not ignore the
word 'the' in the first query. |
 | Synonyms might replace some words in your
original query. (Adding + before
a word disables synonyms.) |
 | A particular word might not appear on a page in your results if
there is sufficient other evidence that the page is relevant. The
evidence might come from language analysis that Google has done or many
other sources. For example, the query[ overhead
view of the bellagio pool ] will
give you nice overhead pictures from pages that do not include the word
'overhead.' |
Punctuation that is not ignored
 | Punctuation in popular terms that have particular meanings, like [ C++ ] or [ C# ] (both
are names of programming languages), are not ignored. |
 | The dollar sign ($) is used to indicate prices. [ nikon
400 ] and [ nikon
$400 ] will
give different results. |
 | The hyphen - is
sometimes used as a signal that the two words around it are very
strongly connected. (Unless there is no space after the - and a space
before it, in which case it is a negative sign.) |
 | The underscore symbol _ is
not ignored when it connects two words, e.g. [ quick_sort ]. |
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