The Best Way to Get Useful Google Search Results

With dozens of requests every day, you undoubtedly believe you have a decent understanding of Google. You type a few words, press enter, search for a second, rephrase your search phrase, press enter again, and so on until you get what you’re looking for. What you may not realize is how accurate you can be with your search phrases without ever having to use the Advanced Search feature, which is somewhat hidden. To swiftly cut through the clutter and filter your search results, all you need are a few operators and symbols.

Google is typically terrific at filling in the blanks, but it doesn’t always show you exactly what you’re looking for. Use these tips to improve the accuracy of your results.

Only look for certain websites or domains

If you’re just interested in results from a single website, you can use the site: operator to narrow your search to that domain. Let’s imagine you want to search CNET for Amazon Alexa content. In the search field, type Amazon Alexa site: cnet.com and press enter. The findings will be limited to the CNET domain only.

Sites or terms should be excluded

On the other hand, if you want to exclude a specific website or term from your search results, simply put a hyphen before the word or operator, such as Amazon Alexa -site: cnet.com or Amazon Echo review -Dot. This is especially useful when looking for anything like a mustang or a jaguar, which are both animals with cars named after them. To find more information on the animal, type in jaguar-car. This will not filter every Jaguar (the car) result, but it will make the animal results stand out more. Stacking operators, such as jaguar -car -auto, can help you filter even further.

Idioms or phrases are difficult to recall completely

You can use the wild card operator, an asterisk, to fill in the blanks if you only remember part of an adage your grandma used to say or part of a song lyric. “A * saved life is a * earned life” or “I don’t want to set the * on fire” are two phrases to look for. This will usually lead you to the phrase you’re looking for.

OR isn’t to be overlooked

You don’t always want to look for a single item. Use the OR operator if you’re seeking something that can be either-or. Product comparisons, such as Coffee vs. Tea: Which is Better for You?. Nonetheless, it can be useful in a variety of scenarios. For example, if you’re looking for DIY home automation, you may search for Raspberry Pi home automation or Arduino home automation to obtain results for both devices.

Lookup a set of numbers or dates

You can search for things within a certain price range when shopping on a budget. Simply type in “coffee maker $50-$100” into your search engine. Most of the time, this will limit the results to items in your price range. However, when it comes to stuff like laptops, smartphones, and graphics cards, the outcomes might be hit or miss.

Image search in reverse

If you utilize Google’s reverse image search, finding a larger version of an image you spotted someplace is a breeze. Go to Google.com, click the Images link in the upper right corner, and either drag and drop or click the camera symbol and paste the image URL into the area. Any other indexed instances of that image online will appear when the image uploads or you hit enter.  This doesn’t always reveal the image’s actual source, but it’s a wonderful method to examine how many times an image has been used before, such as in a shady Craigslist listing or questionable dating profiles. Moreover, you can easily transfer data as you like while searching.

Types of files

If you’re looking for a ppt or PDF, use the filetype: operator to limit your results to that type of file. To utilize it, type productivity filetyped or brew coffee filetype into your search engine.

View a site’s cached version

Not all online pages are maintained indefinitely. If something you wanted to read again has vanished since your first visit to the site or page, check to see if Google cached it. This operator, however, should only be used in the address bar, not the search bar. Before entering a URL, type cache: and hit enter. If you’re lucky, Google will have a cached copy of the page available for you to read. Just keep in mind that the cached version of the page won’t last forever.

Find a word or phrase that you’re looking for

Similarly, if you have a certain word or phrase in mind, you can use quotation marks around your search query to limit the results to that exact phrase. Searching for “Amazon Echo review” yields over 22.5 million results, whereas searching for “Amazon Echo review” yields around 91,700 results.

Packages can be tracked

Simply type track package or paste a tracking number into the search field if you need a quick tracking update on something you bought online. It will be recognized by Google as a tracking number. Choose which carrier is delivering the package and go to the tracking website. In Chrome, you may highlight the tracking number, right-click, and select Search Google for “” instead of copying and pasting.

Wrapping up

While Google is not in danger of losing its position as the most popular search engine, the site’s results are far more hit-or-miss than they used to be. Instead of the most dependable, correct answers to your requests, a typical Google results page these days is jam-packed with adverts, recommended results, and websites that are the greatest at search engine optimization. To achieve good Google results, you need to do more than just type in a few keywords and hope for the best. You should be able to find what you’re looking for faster and easier if you follow the advice we’ve provided below.