Tips to Search Smart Using Google- Part I

We are increasingly dependent of Google search engine. These days arguments between friends last only till one of them gets to a smart phone and search. Still, most of us search in an old fashioned way. Google has a number neat features to search efficiently. Here are some simple tips to get started on searching efficiently.

How to Search a Phrase in Google?

When you search a phrase in Google,  Google looks for websites containing all the words in the phrase.  Such hits may not necessarily have the keywords together as the phrase.  Often, we want to find pages containing the all the words together. The way to search an exact phrase is to type the phrase within quotes as given below.

” your search phrase with in quotations“

How to Exclude a  Phrase in a Google Search?

Let us say you want to search something, but you do  not want the results contain a certain phrase. For example, you want to search  ”Los Angeles Lakers”, but you do not want websites containing the phrase “Kobe Bryant”. You can use minus sign “-” as negation operator to exclude any phrase from your search results. The right way to use the minus sign is to search like

Los Angeles Lakers -”Kobe Bryant”

Note that there is no space between the minus sign and the phrase you want to exclude.

How to Force Google to Include a Phrase or Stop Words?

Stop words are words are small common filler words in a sentence and they do not help the search in general. For example, a, an, of, and the in a sentence are stop words.  To speed up the search, Google (and other search engines) ignores these stop words while searching.

Sometimes, you might want to include a specific stop word or a phrase in your search.  The way to do it is to in include plus sign “+” just before the phrase or a stop word in the search. Another way to include stop words is to put the search phrase with in quotations, just like you search a phrase. Remember that searching a phrase with quotation will limit the number results.

Related posts:

1. Tips to Search Smart Using Google – Part II
2. Tips to Search Smart Using Google- Part 3
3. Google Docs Search Tips: Find Your Documents Fast
4. Useful Gmail Tips – Part 1
5. Google Chrome Tips: Part 1
6. Droid X/Droid 2 Tips: How To “Type” Smart Using Swype
7. Google Offers Tips to Improve Website Quality and Better Search Ranking