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Google Provides Search Engine Tips

Utilizing a search engine can be very powerful but even the most experienced Internet users could learn something new about using Google. By utilizing different search engine techniques, an Internet user utilizing Google could have a better success rate.

By putting a search term into double quotes, a search engine user can get what is called a phrase match. When using a phrase match, the search engine user is looking for matches that contain a specific phrase in it. For example, if someone wanted to search for electronic picture frames, typing in “electronic picture frames” with double quotes will help the search engine find matches for that specific phrase. In other words, the double quotes around “electronic picture frames” will match that specific phrase with content on a web-page.

To exclude unwanted words, a user can simply employ a minus sign or “-“when typing the query into a search engine. The minus sign simply tells the search engine not to look for that word during the search. For example, if a search engine user typed in tennis –shoes, it will not look for keywords or web-site content related to shoes. The minus sign before the word “shoes” in this instance tells the search engine not too look for any keywords with shoes in it and will simply focus in on “tennis” instead.

When typing keywords or a phrase into a search engine, there are times in which Google will add in synonyms to help enhance someone’s search experience. For example, if someone was typing the word “airplane” into the search engine, Google could suggest looking up “jet” as a synonym. For those who do not want that broad of a search, typing in a plus sign before the term tells the search engine to search only for that specific term. Utilizing the previous example, typing in +airplane into a search engine will tell the spider (which searches the web-site content) to look only for that keyword and no other synonyms.

Another way to get an exact match is to type in site:domain into the search engine. This search engine technique can be very handy when trying to match a specific keyword to a web-site. For example, typing in site:www.clevelandcavaliers.com merchandise will direct the user to the specific pages on the Cleveland Cavaliers web site that sells merchandise and Cavs team apparel.

This search engine technique can also be used to find sites with a top level domain. For example, typing in site:gov recycling will list recycling only web-sites that are sponsored by the US government. Specific directories can be searched utilizing this search engine technique by adding in a slash towards the end of the search query. For example, someone can simply type in site:google.com/paintings Monet to search within the paintings directory for a Money piece.

Google “Show Options” Search Options

Matt Cutts demonstrates a few features of the "Search Options" panel in Google search. To see Wonder wheel, another feature of the Search Options panel, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_AvMp...

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These new search options are an interesting way to slice and dice your web searches. If you aren't familiar with these, take a look at this video to learn how you can use these Google Search Options.