google tips and tricks

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Tips and tricks for using Google

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Tips and tricks to make searching with Google quicker and more effective.

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Page 1: Google Tips and Tricks

Tips and tricks for using Google

Page 2: Google Tips and Tricks

How does Google search?

Page 3: Google Tips and Tricks

Google’s Aim

“The perfect search engine would understand exactly what you mean and give you back exactly what you want.”

Larry Page, Co-founder & CEO

Page 4: Google Tips and Tricks

How does Google search?

200+ FACTORS

Page 5: Google Tips and Tricks

Results

££

Page 6: Google Tips and Tricks

Phrasing your search queries

Page 7: Google Tips and Tricks

Tips for phrasing

1. Start simply

William Shakespeare

Page 8: Google Tips and Tricks

Tips for phrasing

2. Add relevant words

William Shakespeare Life

Page 9: Google Tips and Tricks

Tips for phrasing

3. Think within the field

The Bard of Avon

Page 10: Google Tips and Tricks

Tips for phrasing

4. Only use important words*

Not ideal: When will the sun come up in London tomorrow?

Ideal: sunrise London

Page 11: Google Tips and Tricks

Tips for phrasing

*Common words are ignored:

The

a

for

to

and

all

in

some it’s

that

Page 12: Google Tips and Tricks

Tips for phrasing

…most of the time

whothe

Page 13: Google Tips and Tricks

Google is intelligent

Page 14: Google Tips and Tricks

Don’t worry about

1. Spelling – autocorrects

2. Punctuation – ignores @#%^*()=[]\

3. Capitalisation– the new internationalist = The New Internationalist

Page 15: Google Tips and Tricks

When you search Google…

• suggests spelling corrections and alternative spellings

• personalizes your search by using information such as sites you’ve visited before

• includes synonyms of your search terms to find related results

• find results that match similar terms to those in your query

• searches for words with the same stem, like "running" when you search for [ run ]

Page 16: Google Tips and Tricks

Verbatim Search

Page 17: Google Tips and Tricks

Using special characters

Page 18: Google Tips and Tricks

Quotation Marks

Search for an exact phrase in an exact order.e.g.

“to be or not to be”

Warning: you may exclude relevant results.e.g. a search for "Alexander Bell" will miss pages that refer to Alexander G. Bell.

Page 19: Google Tips and Tricks

Minus Sign

Excludes words from your search e.g.

The Great Gatsby -film

Page 20: Google Tips and Tricks

Tilde

Searches for synonymse.g.

~food factsincludes results for “nutrition facts”

Page 21: Google Tips and Tricks

2 full stops

Searches for a specific number rangee.g.

prime ministers 1900 .. 2000

N.B. Make sure you put a space either side of the full stops.

Page 22: Google Tips and Tricks

Phrasing your search queries

Page 23: Google Tips and Tricks

Search within a site

site: allows you to get your search from a specific site or type of site (.gov, .edu).

e.g. unemployment site:gov

would only give you search results from .gov websites

Page 24: Google Tips and Tricks

Search related

related: allows you to find pages that have similar content to a site

e.g. related:www.bbc.co.uk

would give you other news and media agencies

Page 25: Google Tips and Tricks

Define

define: gives you a definition of a word

e.g. define: irony

Page 26: Google Tips and Tricks

Filetypes

filetype: searches for specific filetypes

e.g. the war of the roses filetype:ppt

Page 27: Google Tips and Tricks

Further information