In this day and age, finding what you are looking for can be a daunting task. Search engines are great, but if you do not know how to use them properly they can be more frustrating than helpful. So for all of you that can never seem to find what you are looking for through Google, or any other search engine, this post if for you. I hope it leads you to your pot of gold.

Note: I will be putting examples inside of brackets [ ]. Just use the examples without the brackets when searching. (I need ” ” for something else.)

1. Google and others index BILLIONS of web pages. This first one may be obvious, but be specific! If you want to know about [Siberian husky breeders in Sussex County, New Jersey] then type that. You will be surprised how specific you can be! Only remove specific terms if your search doesn’t provide any results.

2. Search for other terms related to your main area of interest. If you are researching [lobsters] you would likely find information under the search term [crustaceans] also. Use a thesaurus if necessary. (Google now does this automatically)

3. Search engines are not case-sensitive! It dosn’t matter if you type [MaInE] or [maine] or [Maine].

4. Quotation marks work wonders. Putting quotation marks around your search term will force the search engine to look for an exact match of what is inside the quotes. This is called a search phrase and it helps to narrow down your searches quite a bit. You can use quotes along with regular search terms. For example if you know the lyrics to a song but not the title you could enter the following:

["lyrics you remember" lyrics] or ["lyrics you remember" song title]

This will search for an exact match of what is in the quotes as well as search for any other words following.

5. If you are looking for pictures of something, use an image search engine like images.google.com. It will save you a lot of time and hassle. Using an image search is a good way to find maps as well.

6. Use the plus and minus operator (- , +). For example, if you are looking for the term [bass], as in fish, and don’t want the search engine to look for [bass], as in the instrument, you can do the following:

[bass -music] or [bass +fish]

7. Check your spelling. (Google does a pretty good job of suggesting the correct spelling)

8. Use a search that returns bad results (ie. one’s you don’t want) to seek out other terms that might help you to be more specific on other searches.

9. Use the Advanced Search feature available in most search engines. You can create an extremely specific search.

10. Google isn’t the only search engine!!! There are many others that all categorize things in different ways. Try Yahoo!, MSN, AskJeeves, AlltheWeb, or try a vertical search engine. (also known as a speciality search engine)

Happy Searching!

Filed under: Tips