Googling is an invaluable skill that always comes in handy no matter whether you are a student researching for an assignment, a professional seeking solutions to complex problems, or simply a curious individual exploring the vast realm of knowledge.

👨‍💻 Every day, I rely on Google for searching various topics. And in the process I learned some techniques to refine my searches. Refining my searches proved to be a game-changer, significantly boosting my productivity by enabling faster and more accurate results.

Google is an unparalleled powerhouse 💪, indexing billions of web pages and serving up results in a fraction of a second. However, amidst this vast sea of information lie hidden gems 💎 that can often evade even the most adept searchers.

10 Techniques to refine your search 🎯

1. Quotation marks (" ")

Enclosing keywords inside the " " returns web pages that contain those exact words in the exact order.

For example, instead of using,

Best places for a vacation

use this.

"Best places for a vacation"

Then the pages which contain these words in that exact order will be returned.

2. Hyphen (-)

Hyphens are used to exclude certain keywords from the search.

For example the search

Best places for a vacation -Hawaii

excludes the keyword Hawaii from the results.

3. Search inside specific site (site:)

You can search for results inside a specific website using site: keyword.

Best places for a vacation site:forbes.com

returns all the webpages that contain the keywords Best places for vacation in the forbes.com website.

4. Wildcard (*)

When you use the wildcard (*) in the search query, the google engine puts most suitable terms in their place automatically and returns you the most suitable results.

For example consider that I know part of a lyric but not the exact words. So I use this.

"Take my hand * put Van * jukebox"

Here the song "Shape of You" is returned as the search query is an incomplete lyric of it.

5. Combine search queries (and,or)

We can combine multiple queries using AND and choose either of a query using OR

Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning

Here the pages that contain both the keywords will be returned. Also you can use the and more than twice.

(cat OR dog) training tips

Here some of the returned web pages will contain training tips for cats while others will contain those for dogs. The () helps to nicely group the keywords.

6. Search for related websites (related:)

related:forbes.com

The results will contain websites similar to forbes.com.

7. Searching between dates (after: ,before: , . .)

You can search for web pages published after a particular year using after:

open source pdf readers after:2020

Similarly web pages published before a particular year can be returned by using before:

open source pdf readers before:2018

Also web pages published between two years can be returned using ..

open source pdf readers 2019..2021

8. Searching for specific file type (filetype:)
Another technique is to specify the file types you want to find.

python cheatsheet filetype:pdf

All the search results would be in pdf format.
You can specify other types too. ppt,doc,ps,rtf,swf etc are some of the valid formats.

9. Searching for terms in address,title,links
You can search for terms that appear in the title of the web page using allintitle:

allintitle:open source software

The search returns the pages with "open source software" in the title.

allintext: is used to search for terms in the text of the page.

allintext:open source software

The search returns pages which has "open source software" in the page.

allinurl: is used to search for terms in the url of the page.

allinurl:open source software

The search returns pages which has "open source software" in the url of the page.

allinanchor: is used to search for terms in the links to the page.

allinanchor:open source software

The search returns pages having "open source software" in the anchor text of links.

10. The wording is important!
Last but not the least, how you word your queries are very important in getting refined searches.

For example, consider you are having some trouble with installing docker, so instead of using,

docker installation failed

use this.

troubleshooting docker installation error

you will get the relevant web pages. Because that's how the web pages will be worded.

Also if you use too much words, the results will be limited. So keep in mind to use the important keywords only.

For example instead of using,

where can i find restraunts that serve spicy food

use this.

restraunts near me

🎉 And that's it folks. There are few more Search Engine Operators than the ones I have inlcuded. Do check those out too! 🙌


💬 If you have any queries or concerns, feel encouraged to reach out to me via comments or my socials.