How long have you been using Google? A long time ago, right? Probably over a decade. In all of those years, there are some tricks many of us still do not know, that’s why sometimes, when we make a search, the results we are expecting doesn’t pop up.
We all want to search and find what we’re looking out for on page one, without having to burn time going from page to page. There are tons of tricks that helps ease your Google search, and tons of others that enable you do a lot of things you never imagined could be done with Google.
Here are a few tricks for smarter Google search:
- Use quotes to search for exact phrases
This comes in handy when you’re trying to find results containing a specific a phrase. When you type in the phrase in quotes, Google returns your search as a complete phrase, in the exact order and proximity that you typed it. Without the quotes, you’ll get results just like you’ve always had, with Google locating the words either separately OR together.
For instance, if you search for Hangout spots in Lagos, the search engine will search for content that contains those three words in any order. However, if you search “Hangout spots in Lagos”, it will search for that phrase exactly as you typed it.
- Use the minus sign to exclude words
Sometimes, you’ll want to eliminate certain words if what you’re searching for is generating a lot of results that aren’t of interest to you. An example is Apple. When you search for the word, Apple, you may get a lot of results that has to do with the iPhone. To cut that out, use the minus sign to tell Google to ignore content about the iPhone.
For example, typing Apple -iPhone would tell Google to search for Apple but to remove any results that has to do with the “iPhone”. Also, if your want search results to be about the fruit, then use the plus sign, e.g, Apple +fruit.
- Search for content on a specific website
You can use Google to actually search for content in a specific website.
For example, say you want to look inside of Innovation Village for everything on “startup”, here’s how you would frame your search on Google – startup site:innovation-village.com. This will search for all content about startups, but only on innovation-village.com. All other search results will be removed.
- Find specific file type
For those times when you need content that you can save and come back to later, without having to use the internet, Google allows you to search and find such content in your preferred file type, rather than on web pages.
For example: “filetype:doc Business” will provide search results for word documents that has content on Business.
- Use OR to search for multiple words or phrases
Google search is flexible. It knows you may not find what you want by searching only a single word or phrase. Also, you might want to kill two birds at the same time by searching for multiple phrases at a time. When you search for two different words using OR, Google lists results having any of those words.
For example, when you search “house for rent in VI OR Yaba”, which is short for searching two queries “house for rent in VI OR house for rent in Yaba”, Google gives results for both queries. Using this trick can help narrow down your search and helps you find exactly what you’re looking for.
