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Searching and Other Google Tips

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This previously published Tips and Techniques page offers some tips for performing effective Web searches using Google. By understanding how Google interprets your input, you will be able to perform more effective searches.

Specifying a Google Search

Google will try to find Web pages with ALL of the words that you enter in your input, so it is best if you leave out words that are not generally used (try to think if the author of the pages you want would use them). An exception is that Google treats single letters and numbers, most prepositions and words like a, an, the, why, how, etc. as "noise" words and ignores them, so you should not type them. If your search turns up more pages than you want, you can examine the results and perform another, more specific search.

More search tips:

If a "noise" word is essential to getting the search results you want, you can make sure it is included by putting a plus (+) sign in front of it (with a space before, but not after, the plus sign).

If you want to search for a complete phrase, like a familiar quotation or song lyric, enclose the phrase in quotation marks (Google will treat it like one search term).

If you want to be sure your results do not include a specific word, prefix the word with a minus (-) sign. For example "maui resorts golf -tennis" should find resorts on Maui that have golf facilities, but not tennis. Note: don't enter the quotation marks for this and the following examples. 

Google ignores capitalization and treats all input as if were lower case, so don't waste your time by capitalizing proper names.

Google will try to find other words that are forms of the words you enter. So, "diet needs" and "dietary needs" are equivalent.

To find pages that include either of two terms, include uppercase OR between the terms. For example, "Laurel Mississippi OR Maryland" should find information about a town called Laurel in either state.

To find pages that include synonyms for words, prefix those words with the tilde (~) character. For example "~infant ~nutrition" should return everything you want to know about feeding your baby.

You can have Google build an advanced query for you. To do so, click the Advanced Search link on the Google main page.

Other Kinds of Searches

To find the definition of a word, enter the word define followed by a space and the word. For example, enter "define alligator" to find a definition (and more) about the creature.

To find facts, just enter what you want to know briefly in English. For example, try "population of Moscow" to find what it is.

To find a stock quote, enter the symbol.

To find United States addresses and phone numbers in Google's phone book, enter a query in one of the following forms:

• first name (or first initial), last name, city (state is optional)
• first name (or first initial), last name, state
• first name (or first initial), last name, area code
• first name (or first initial), last name, zip code
• phone number, including area code
• last name, city, state
• last name, zip code

For more tips and help, try this Google help page:
     http://www.google.com/intl/en/help.html

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