Google Tips

Begin by viewing this video:

• Effective Internet Searching (7:45) - techniques to search the internet for the best results

Read the information below and try some practice searches.

Basic Searching Tips

Several SEARCH OPERATORS can be helpful when using Google. These symbols and techniques help focus and narrow search results.

• Boolean Operators
  • AND does not need to be entered. Google automatically looks for all words typed in search field
  • NOT is entered using a hyphen and helps eliminate words. Example: dolphins -football
  • OR is typed between words, indicating you want any of the words. Example: football OR hockey
• Phrase search
  • Use quotation marks to search for a group of words in a specific order. Example: "miami football team"
• Site or domain search
  • Use site: to limit the search to a specific website or domain
    • energy efficient appliances site:.gov
    • cost wind farms site:epa.gov

Advanced Search

Recently (as of June 2013) Google has hidden the link to ADVANCED SEARCH which used to be on their main page. Now you have to complete a search and use the gear symbol on the right to find the link.

ADVANCED SEARCH has many choices to focus the results of a search:

• Find pages with...
  • all these words
  • this exact word or phrase
  • any of these words
  • none of these words
  • numbers raging from____ to_____
• Then narrow your results by...
  • language
  • region
  • last update
  • site or domain
  • terms appearing
  • SafeSearch
  • reading level
  • file type
  • usage rights

Search within Results

Once you have a result list, there are more tools to narrow the results. The choices are determined by the topic searched.

After searching for a chocolate cookie recipe the list includes 9 million results

Click on Search tools, the number of results disappears and tools to narrow the results appear. Results can be limited by ingredients, cooking time, calories, etc.

Special Searches

There are several SPECIAL SEARCHES that can help focus results. Here are a few.

• Weather - type weather and the city or zip code
• Stock Quotes - type the ticker symbol
• Time - type time and the location
• Sports Scores - type name of team
• Calculator - type calculation in search box
  • Unit Conversion - type measurement and unit along with unit wanted
  • Synonym - use the tilde sign followed by the word ~running
• Define - type define and the word
  • Local search - type what you are looking for followed by location

Locating information on a web page

If you have trouble finding what you are looking for on a web page, use the "Find" function of the browser to locate terms on a page

This website created by Dotty Delafield dkd11@scasd.org librarian @Mount Nittany Middle School, State College Area School District, 656 Brandywine Drive, State College, PA 16801. Further educational use with proper attribution is encouraged. Last Updated: 8 December 2014.