10 tips for improving your Google search results

10 tips for improving your Google search results

There are times, even on Google, when you just can’t find what you are searching for. The search results just didn’t come out “right”, what you want just wasn’t there. How you wish you could do something extra…to get better search result.

Well today must be your lucky day, because I’m going to tell you that extra something, 10 tips for better Google searching. Hopefully these tips will give more relevance to the search results you get. The next time you Google search, instead of entering only your keywords in the search box, try the tips below.

Let’s start out by finding out the name of that fruit in the picture, try Google search spiky fruit.

Now that you know its name, let’s learn some more about strange-looking fruit using these tips:
Keyword definition. Define:[keyword] operator provides definitions for words, phrases, and acronyms from the Web. Let’s define:durian.

File type. [keyword] filetype:[filetype extension]. find documents of the specified type, as in durian filetype:pdf.

Image search. Google Image search, you can narrow down the images according to Size, Color and content type whether its News, Faces, Clip art, Line drawing or Photo. Now let’s do image search of durian.
 
Glossary. To look for glossaries, as well as dictionaries, lists of terms, terminology, etc use tilde(~) before keyword, as in ~durian.
 
Phrase. To look for exact phrases, put them in quotes as in “heavenly durian” or “durian stinks” .
 

Site page listing. Enough about durian. To show all webpages in a website or domain, use site:[domain] operator, as in site:www.tourismmalaysia.gov.my. You can use this method to check whether or not all of your pages are indexed by Google.
 
In-site search. To search inside a specific website, just add the keyword before site: operator, as in kelantan site:www.tourismmalaysia.gov.my.
 
Cached pages. To display Google's cached version of a web page use cache: operator, as in cache:http://www.bloggersentral.com/2009/04/keeping-your-widgets-when-changing.html. Especially useful if you want to recover deleted pages.
 
Link listing. To show webpages that link to a site use link: as in link:www.tourismmalaysia.gov.my.
 
Keyword exclusion. To exclude certain keyword from result pages use [keyword] –[excluded keyword], as in Barack –Obama.

You are welcomed to share your Google search tips here. Use the comments.