Google Search Tips

• -• prevents a search term to show in results• for example searching for doughnut -cream can help

you to avoid creamy doughnuts “ “

using quotes forces google to search for the exact phrase (including stop words)

~ allow to search also for synonyms of the given

word. searching for doughnut ~tips finds also pages with

the word help or guide etc.

Basic Operators

* means every word “doughnuts with *”

.. Used to search in a range of numbers“2..20 doughnuts” will find pages containing “I

eat 3 doughnuts a day” and “I’ll never eat more than 15 doughnuts in a month”

Basic Operators

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Fill in the Blanks – “*”

You can replace unknown words with an asterisk -

“*”.Google returns results

substituting the “*” with words most

frequently used in the context of the query.

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Possible Uses for “*”

Busted!

Searching out suspected plagiarism.

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Possible Uses for “*”

All spellings of a word will be found.

Including results with common misspellings.

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Possible Uses for “*”

Finding common variations.

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Fun with “*”

Finding parodies.

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Fill in the Blanks – “*”

…Google will treat the characters on either side of the “*” like separate keywords.

Replacing a character.

If you try to use “*” to fill in a letter, number, or symbol…

filetype: returns links to documents with the given file type For example searching for doughnuts filetype:java will find por-

table and object-oriented doughnuts Currently officially supported file types: pdf, ps, wk1, wk2, wk3,

wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku, lwp, mw, xls, ppt, doc, wks, wps, wdb, wri, rtf, swf, ans, txt, but other are supported as well, like xml, cpp, java etc.

site: restricts the results to the given domain. site:mapelli.info will find all indexed page on www.mapelli.info,

while site:mapelli.info doughnuts will find all doughnuts-related pages on www.mapelli.info .

Advanced Operators

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Query Modifiers – site:

Example 1

Enter search terms, then

qualifier. Finds elephant race on the Cal State

Fullerton site.

Limit your search to a specific web site.

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Query Modifiers – site:

Example 2

Enter search

terms, then qualifier.

Finds dinosaur on the Smithsonian

Institute site.

Limit your search to a specific web site.

Query Modifiers – site:

Example 3

Enter search terms, then

qualifier.

Limits search of schwarzenegger to

official California senate pages.

Limit your search to a specific web site.

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Query Modifiers – filetype:

Specify a type of document to search.

pdf – Adobe readable

files

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Query Modifiers – filetype:

Specify a type of document to search.

pdf – Adobe readable

filesdoc – Microsoft

Word documents

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Query Modifiers – filetype:

Specify a type of document to search.

pdf – Adobe readable

filesdoc – Microsoft

Word documents

mdb – Microsoft Access

databases

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Query Modifiers – filetype:

D’oh!

If you get no results from Google Web, try Google Images.

Specify a type of document to search.

pdf – Adobe readable

filesdoc – Microsoft

Word documents

mdb – Microsoft Access

databasesjpg, gif, tif – graphics and

photos

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Query Modifiers – filetype:

Specify a type of document to search.

pdf – Adobe readable

filesdoc – Microsoft

Word documents

mdb – Microsoft Access

databasesjpg, gif, tif – graphics and

photosppt – Microsoft

PowerPoint presentations

Using Multiple Query Modi-fiers

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Key words, plus……site: modifier, plus…

…filetype: modifier……equals…

Voilà!

Search of shampoo ingredient limited to find only PowerPoint

files on official California

government pages.

link: lists web pages that link to the given webpage. link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut will list web pages

with links pointing to wikipedia’s voice for Doughnut related:

returns pages that google somehow thinks are related to the given page.

Not always accurate. info:

returns some informations about the given web page. Typically website and description.

Advanced Operators

define: returns the definition of a given word. example: define:database

weather: weather information for the given city. example: weather:los angeles

Advanced Operators

movie: returns all movies related to the search term given. Sample: movie:doughnuts

You can also find movies by locations: movie:nyc movie:10015

Advanced Operators

Use these commands in the search window.intitle: Find sites with one search term in the title.

allintitle: Find sites with all search terms in the title.

inurl: Find sites with one search term in the URL.

allinurl: Find sites with all search terms in the URL

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Query Modifiers

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Query Modifiers – inti-tle:

…and ingredient anywhere in the

document.

This search returns sites with the word shampoo in the

title…

Find sites with one search term in the title.

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Query Modifiers – allintitle:

Notice fewer “hits” when

shampoo AND ingredient

must be found in the title of the

page.

Find sites with all search terms in the title.

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Query Modifiers – in-url:

…and ingredient anywhere in the

document.

This search returns sites with the word shampoo in the

URL…

Find sites with one search term in the URL.

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Query Modifiers – allinurl:

Find sites with all search terms in the URL.

Notice fewer “hits” when

shampoo AND ingredient

must be found in the title of the

page.