Most people simply enter a few key words into google and hope for the best. There is so much information on the net now that finding the exact information you want can be quite difficult.
There are quite a few operators that can be used to narrow down search results.
Phrase search (""):
Anything within the quote marks will be the exact seach phrase you are looking for. "cotton and cheese" will be different from cotton and cheese as sites that use this exact phrase will be the top results.
Site search (site):
This will search for the given keywords within a specific site. Google Search Tips and Tricks will show results from all over the web. site:pc-offensive.com Google Search Tips and Tricks will show results only from the website pc-offensive.com. You can also use this with top level domains. site:.gov afghanistan will only show results for afganistan from .gov tld's.
Exclude terms (-):
adding a - in front of a keyword will exclude it from the results. search engines will show results for the keywords 'search' and 'engines'. search engines -google will exclude any results with the word 'google' in them.
Wildcard (*):
The wildcard will let google fill in the blanks for you if you don't have something specific to search for. For example, Bush voted * on the * bill will return several different sites where bush has voted on a Bill.
Seach as is (+):
The + seperator will seach for the word exactly as typed. You can also use the quote marks around the word toget the same results. eg. child care may return results for 'ca care' (ca being a state in th eUnited States).
OR operator (|):
You can use the word 'OR' or the pipe '|' to allow one word or another. Football team wins in 2008 | 2009 or Football team wins in 2008 OR 2009will return results for those search terms, using either 2008 or 2009. Not having the OR operator will return results for both years.
Title search (Intitle):
using intitle:"catcher in the rye" will only return sites that have 'catcher in the rye' in the title.
Text search (intext):
using intext:"catcher in the rye" will only return sites that have 'catcher in the rye' in the text.
Date range search (daterang):
Restricting search results to a specific time can get results that don't usually appear in normal searches. pc-offensive daterange:2452122-2452123 will search for 'pc-offensive' within 2452122 and 2452123. (This is the Julian calendar in years since 4713 BC). Look for an online convertor to convert Julian date to Gregorian date.
Things to remember:
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