If you want to search for something on Google, the easiest way to go about doing it would be to type in the thing you want to search for, hit enter, and you can go through the results to find what it is that you were looking for. However, what if you can’t find what you were looking for?
What if there was something a bit more specific that you wanted to search for? In this guide, we will show you some tips and tricks on how to better refine your Google search so as to better surface results that might be more relevant to what you want.
Using Quotes To Search For An Exact Phrase
If you’re searching for song lyrics or maybe a line in a book or poem, there are certain words that are too general that might affect the search, such as “and”, “or”, “they”, and so on. If you’re trying to search for a very specific phrase, then that’s where using “quotes” in your search term will make Google search for that exact phrasing.
Using quotes will force Google to only show results with the quoted words or phrases in priority.
Searching Specific Websites
Google search yields search results from a variety of websites, but sometimes it might not necessarily be the website you want. For example, if you’re trying to find an article from a website like Ubergizmo, just using the “site:” function, such as “site:ubergizmo.com iPhone” and Google will list all pages on ubergizmo.com for iPhone related articles.
Searching Related Alternative Websites
So in case ubergizmo.com does not have the articles you were searching for (why, oh why!?), but you’re hoping some other tech publication might have it, you can use the “related:” term.
For example, “related:Ubergizmo.com” and it will try to find similar or related websites. We shouldn’t even tell you how to find competing sites, but we still do, because it will help you.
Looking Within A Range Of Numbers
Say you’re trying to find a range of numbers, like pricings for a hotel, or maybe used cars, then you can use the “..” to specify the range you want to search for. For example, “used cars $10000..$15000” and Google will try to search for used car websites and listings that have cars priced between $10,000 to $15,000.
Combining Your Searches
If you do not find what you’re looking for, chances are you might try searching again using different wordings or phrasings. However, to save you the time from having to do that, you can instead include multiple searches that can act as alternative search terms to bring up more results.
This can be done using “OR”, so for example, you can search for “cars OR trucks for sale”.
Looking Up A Cached Version Of A Site
Sometimes a webpage may no longer exist or it might have been moved, but thanks to Google’s efforts at archiving and caching the web, you might be able to pull up a cached version of a specific website by typing “cache:” followed by the website’s address.
Find Websites With A Specific Word In Its Address
Say you forgot the name of a company or website that you’re trying to visit, or if you’re not sure if it’s a .net, .org, or .com website. By using “inurl:” followed by the word, Google will list websites that will have the word in its URL. This can be useful if you’re trying to find website addresses that might contain somewhat generic terms.
Pulling Up Maps In Search Results
You could go to Google Maps’ if you’re trying to find the maps of a location, but if you want to speed things up a bit, you can type “maps:” followed by the location or area, and it will bring up the maps in your search results.
Defining Words
Trying to looking for a definition of a word without having to go to another website? Just type “define:” followed by the word you are looking for and Google will display the information on the main search page. Of course, you might be able to get more information if you were to go to specific websites, but if you just want something quick and easy, this gets the job done.
Instant Currency Converter
There are many websites out there that can convert one currency to another for you, but if you want something quick just to get a rough idea of how much it converts too, Google has you covered. All you need to do is type the value of the currency you have followed by “to” and then the currency you want it to convert to, such as “$100 to gbp”.
Conclusion
While there are probably a lot more different ways to refine your search results, we think that this list should contain the tools that most of us would use on a daily basis, so if you did not know about them before, give them a try and maybe you’ll start to find that you are getting search results that are better and more relevant to what you were searching for.
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