Become a Google Ninja with Advanced Search Operators
Do you ever feel that if you could only tell Google a bit more about what you're trying to find, the search results would be much better? Well, as you probably know -
Google has some advanced search operators that help to refine search queries. You can use them to better focus your queries by specifying things like which sites to search, use placeholders, search for exact matches, and more.
Here is a quick guide to Google's advanced search operators.
Starting with Google's advanced operators
Double quotation marks (" ") for exact much:
When you enclose a phrase in quotation marks, Google returns only pages that contain that exact phrase. The results have to contain all the words and in the exact same order as you wrote them. Search for "The first Twitter user", for example, and you'll only get back pages that contain exactly that phrase. This advanced search feature is one of the most useful in my opinion.
Asterisk (*) is a placeholder for one or more words:
adding * replaces any number of words in your query. Example: let's say you want to find articles that teach Google search practices, like this one. You could use the following query for that task:
"how to Search * with Google"
The quotation marks will make sure that you'll get back pages with that sentence in them. But since there's Asterisk in the query, you'll find different versions of it. So, you might get back this sentence: How to Search Faces with Google, this one: How to SearchEffectively with google, or any other variation that matches the query. See the results in the image below or try the query yourself.
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