Do you doubt that Google knows everything? Want to know the meaning of a particular word? Just type the keyword define together with the exact word you want to search. What if you want the customer service number of a company in your city? Ask Google, but make sure you add customer service to the name of the company. There are examples of key terms you can use if you don’t want to waste your time while searching the Internet.
However, you don’t need the hundreds of million answers Google presents to you as search results. You also do not need to type a long sentence like, “what are the basic steps to installing software on Windows 10?” before Google can respond. This article is short but at the end of it, you would learn some basic ideas you can implement to make sure you get meaningful search results.
1). Less is more! Three or fewer keywords are enough
“What are the basic steps to installing software on Windows 10?”
Go back and read that sentence, and tell me three words you think are important and which you really care about. You’re right – Basic, Steps, Software, Windows 10. The remaining six are unnecessary. Or you can simply type, Instructions, Software, Windows 10 into the query box then narrow down your search using the next tip I’m going to share.
2). Narrow down your search using ‘Settings’
In our initial search example, once I clicked search I got the following result page.
Next, look for ‘Search Tools’. If you’re using a desktop, you will have another option called ‘Settings’. With the ‘Tools’ option, you can ask Google to provide you with answers that are within specific times – Past hour, Past 24 hours, Past year, etc. You also have a custom range which gives you the option to set the specific date or day a search result was published on the Internet and displayed to you.
Google automatically presents you with ‘All results’ that are related to your keywords. But you can set it to ‘Verbatim’ to present results or answer with the exact words you typed in the query box.
3). Narrow down during ‘Image Search’
The ‘Tools’ feature is also good for you to get the correct image(s) for any project you’re working on. Let’s say I want to design graphics for a Telecommunications company. In it I want to display the picture of a lady making a phone call. If I type in my keywords “Lady” “Smartphone” “Call”. As I click the tab “Images” Google will present the result page below.
Below the image, you see five different options – Size, Colour, Type, Time, Usage Rights – which you can use to narrow down to get a specific image that matches the way you want your message to be communicated to its audience.
4). The overlooked ‘Arrow’ at the right hand of each URL
Every time you do a search on Google you will notice to the right hand of each URL in the results page there’s a drop-down arrow. When you click the arrow, you sometimes see Cached and other times ‘Cached’ and ‘Similar’. ‘Cached’ is useful for those times when a site that appeared on the result page is down and you want to view a snapshot of that page the last time Google’s Web Crawler was on that side. The ‘Similar’ feature helps you select a similar site next to the Tenth Code homepage URL. It then lists results for sites like Tenth Code.
5). Activate ‘Safe Search’
A lot of people who use search engines are not aware they can protect themselves or their children from consuming explicit content. You can find the Safe Search settings in the area displayed by the arrow below.
Now that you’re aware, never again should you neglect these necessary features while browsing using search engines. Go ahead comment on which one of the five is most helpful.
