Smarter Search Strategies

by Helen Gallagher, © 2006
 
 

 

 

 

 


When looking up a term in a search engine, most of us know what we what we want but not always how to ask. Let’s say you really want some peach ice cream. You don’t go to in to an ice cream shop and ask: “What flavors do you have?” You ask for what you really want: “Do you have peach ice cream?

Web searches work best if you narrow your inquiry to specific topics, or combine a search term with a qualifier. Next to choosing a good search engine, the most important search technique skill is to structure your query to yield the best results.

Advanced Search

Every major search engine has an Advanced Search option to let you refine your search. You can narrow the search to specific phrases, languages, date ranges, to yield the precise results you are seeking from millions of web pages.

Expand your search techniques by trying a few of these examples on two top search engines: Google and Yahoo plus two of my personal favorites: Clusty.com and A9.com, owned by Amazon.

But don’t stop with these. Experiment with searches, and read the Advanced Tips or Help files in your favorite search engine. The result will be faster searches and better results.


 


Use this

Like this

Example

 

Quote marks

 

Put phrases in quotes, to avoid searching for each word separately.

 

 

“minimum wage”

NOT

Type an upper case NOT to exclude a term

Cubs NOT Chicago

 

Plus sign

You already know to use the plus sign (+) to look for two phrases

“focus groups” + “medical research”

 

Minus sign

Use the minus sign to exclude a word. Notice there is no space after the minus sign.

 

“song birds” –wren

Asterisk

Like in searching for a file on your computer the asterisk is a wildcard. Expand your search if you don’t know the word you want to pair up with another

 

Shiraz and *wine

 

File types

If you only want your search results to yield a certain file type, such as .pdf  (Adobe portable document format).  Now that most ebooks are available in PDF, this is a great way to search for free ones.

 

ebook +free filetype:ppt

Cached

With millions of search pages indexed by web tools continually, sometimes you want older info. Google let’s you search old web pages.

 

cache: windows 95

Synonyms

Use the tilde (~) to find similar terms

~food ~facts

 

OR

Use an uppercase “OR” for an either/or result

vacation Barcelona OR Tahiti

 

Site

Especially handy for medical and computer research. Sort through volumes of information by searching within a specific web site.

 

site:mayoclinic.org "calcium supplements"