#searchbetter

The following google features/suggestions are all from the article 20 Tips to Google Search Efficiently. I’ve listed the items I rarely or never use below as a reminder to start incorporating them.

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!! Hyphen to exclude words !!

-Java

Never use this and can be very helpful if differentiating between similarly named things from different frameworks/languages

Colon to search specific sites

I find it’s less that I don’t use this and more that I search & let google surface the specific site link for me if there are multiple results on a single site (often stack overflow =p).

!! Finding a page that links to another page !!

Link:<URL>

Enabled by how google traverses the web with spiders. Use case: Want to know who cites/links to a particular article?

Asterisk wild card

Use cases: Looking for song lyrics but you forget a word? Know most of the syntax for a command but forgot a parameter?

!! Surface sites similar to a specific site !!

Related:Amazon.com

Will return results for other online stores

Search using multiple terms

Use OR operator, helps narrow results by being able to compare against both

!! Searching a range of numbers !!

Uses .. operator with either a number on the right for single date, or number on each side for a range to search

Limited use cases but very helpful for those specific applications.

Search by filetype

Filetype:pdf