Each day, hundreds of millions of people turn to Google to peruse the Internet (Google has 91 percent of the search engine market). Whether this is students who need information for assignments, professionals doing research, or someone who wants instant gratification in the form of entertainment, Google is a popular search engine.
While Google is generally effective, there are occasions when it falls short of finding what is needed. At times, the activity of Googling something simple can feel overwhelming due to the countless results you get back.
To help you maximise your search efficiency and get the search results you want quickly, Joe Davies, an SEO expert at Internet provider site FatJoe, presents Digital Journal with some ideas to improve Google searches.
Dig Deeper with the Asterisk Wildcard
Similar to the blank tile in Scrabble, the asterisk serves as a wildcard in searches. It fills in for missing words or parts of words, useful for completing phrases or searching for less definite articles.
If you are uncertain or forgot a term in your search, use the wildcard (*) character. Google will replace it with relevant terms for you.
For example, if you’re trying to find a song but don’t know the author or the song lyrics, you can use * which will help you find the missing words in a phrase. For example, if you search:
Is this real life * fantasy.
Google will display that this is from the song “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.
Shop Smartly Using a Range of Numbers
To save time and money when shopping on Google, the user can just use price ranges. To do this, type the item’s name, your minimum price, two dots, and your maximum price.
For example, if you want to buy a red wall clock for a price range between $10 and $100, simply search on Google: red wall clock $10..$100. In this case, Google will search for those price ranges.
Track Packages
Google can help people to track their package deliveries. To do so, simply type your UPS, USPS, or FedEx tracking number into the Google search bar, and it will show you your package’s tracking information.
Track Flights
This Google search trick saves you from looking for a good flight tracker website. Just type the flight number into Google. It shows both airports and lets you know if the flight is on time, along with other useful details.
Use Quotes to Find Exact Results
Normally, when you Google something, it does a quick search. This might give you pages that may or may not have all the words you used in your search. When you are looking for something specific, use quotes in your Google search. It helps the search engine find all the results that contain those terms right next to each other, exactly how you write them.
For example, if you search for “healthy vegan recipes,” it looks for pages that have specifically these terms somewhere on the page.
Exclude Terms with Minus Symbol
Sometimes, when you look up a word like “Jaguar” on Google, you’ll get results for both the Jaguar car and the animal. If you want to focus on just one, use a minus symbol to tell the search engine to ignore content related to the other.
For example, when you Google “Jaguar -car”, it will tell the search engine to search for Jaguar but remove any results that have the word “car” in it.
Find Results Before or After a Certain Date
If you’re researching and want results from a certain year or time, if you add “before” or “after” when searching, it helps narrow down results to articles published before or after those dates.
For example, if you want to find healthy news articles that were last published between January 1, 2023, and January 1, 2024, you can search: x-event after:2023-01-01 before:2024-01-01.
Search Within a Site Using a Colon
To search within a particular website on Google, just add “site:” before your question. This is useful when you’re looking for something on a website that either does not have its own search or the search it has is not very good.
