How to Perform Advanced Google Searches

Summary

Instructions on how to use Google Advanced Search features

Instructions

Go to google.com.

• To search for a word definition, add the word after “define”
  • Example: define nagware
• To search within a specific site, add “:site.top-level-domain” after the search phrase/word without the quotes.
  • Example: free college tuition:msnbc.com
• To search for an exact phrase, place double quotes around the phrase.
  • Example: “database software”
• To eliminate results containing a certain word, add before the search “ – word-to-be-excluded” without the quotes.
  • Example: transformers –movie
• To include a certain word, add before the search “ +word-to-be-included” without the quotes.
  • Example: cars +Toyota
• To find similar words, add “~” before the word.
  • Example: marketing ~professional
• To find social tags, start with “@”
  • Example: @startrek
• To find popular hashtags for trending topics, start with “#”
  • Example: #sarcasm
• To add unknown words to a search phrase, add an asterisk as a placeholder.
  • Example: an * a day keeps the * away
• To get a range of numbers, separate them with “..”
  • Example: presidents 2004..2014
• To find pages that link to a certain page, type before the page “link:” without the quotes.
  • Example: link:wlos.com
• To find similar sites, type before the search “related:” without the quotes.
  • Example: related:abtech.edu
• To reverse search an image, go to images.google.com and drag & drop the image from your computer into the search box. You may want to make your browser window smaller, click Restore Down on the upper right corner, so you have access to the desktop.
  • Example: Drag and drop image here.

• To compare foods, use “vs.”
  • Example: rice vs. lentils

• To activate a calculator, type in any mathematical expression.
  • Example: 192*28
• To search news archives going back to the mid-1880s (offered by Google), go to news.google.com/newspapers.
• To find a listed phone number owner, type “phonebook:number”
  • Example: phonebook:555-555-5555*

*You have to use a real number for this to work.

To see more, go to google.com/advanced_search.

Key Words: googling, searching, advanced searching