Increase Your Google Search Efficiency

Would you like to make your Google Searches more efficient?
Here are a few tips that can help you to search like a pro.

When searching for something specific use quotes.

• Using quotes tells google to search specifically for the phrase quoted.
  
  For example, if you searched for doughnuts, you would get results for the word doughnut as well as donuts.  However, if you searched for "doughnuts", you would only receive the results for that spelling of the word.
  
  You may use multiple words within quotes.  For example,  "chocolate doughnuts".

 

To exclude words from your search, use a hyphen.

• Basically, by using the hyphen you are saying NOT.  For example, if I searched for mustangs, I would receive information on horses and on Ford cars.  Perhaps, I am only interested in the animal.  My new search would be
  
  mustang -cars.  
  (Read this as mustang not cars.)

 

To search for specific sites, use a colon.

• Sometimes, you want information from a particular site.
  
  For example, perhaps I want to search Edutopia for information about co-teaching.
  Rather than making my search string Edutopia co-teaching,  I can make it
  
  co-teaching :edutopia.com
  
  Search results will come from only the web site Edutopia.