Google is the world’s largest search engine but up to 99% of users don’t know how to search it efficiently.
If you are anything like me, you spent half your life looking for stuff on Google.
For those of you wanting to find what you are looking for more efficiently try out these tips below:
1. Quotation Marks
Using quotation marks in your search term or phrase will let you search for exactly that word or phrase.
All the results will have your phrase in them. See the example below where the search term is “Best WordPress Themes 2022”
2. Dashes (hypens)
If you want to perform a general search but want to exclude a specific term from the search, include a dash before the word, but make sure that there is no space between the dash and the word.
For example, in the screenshot below, we are searching for Best mobile apps -android. Using -android after which exclude Andriod apps from the search results.
3. Site
Use site to search within a specific site.
For example, site:https://www.bbc.co.uk will provide search results only from the BBC website.
4. TWO FULL STOPS (PERIODS for our US friends) ..
You can include two full stops if you want to search within number ranges.
For example, search for action movies 1950..1970. You will return results on or between 1950 to 1970
5. Imagesize:
You can search for images of a certain size.
For example in an image search, type motorcycle:500px*500px to return images of motorcycles that are 500px X 500px.
6. Filetype
If you want your search results in a particular file type, you can search for that too.
For example, wordpress filetype:pdf or wordpress filetype:ppt will return results only in PDF or Powerpoint format.
7. DEFINE
If you are looking for the definition of a word you can search using “define” in the search.
For example, define: javascript
8. SEARCH:
Using search: in your search, you can search within a specific website.
For example, wordpress plugins search:https://codecanyon.net/
That’s it, your guide to using Google more efficiently. I hope you find them useful.
