Building Better Google Searches
January 13th, 2009Speaking of learning things, Chris sent me a link that lists special strategies and syntax for searching Google more efficiently.
I use a couple of them all the time (especially site:), but I definitely spotted a few that will be extremely helpful:
- +[stop word] - having the plus sign before a "stop word" (such as +not) forces the search to include that word, instead of ignoring it
- inurl: and intitle: - similar to site:, but this limits the search to words just in the web address or title field. Very useful for increasing relevancy on obscure information
- related: - lists websites that are "related" to the domain you search for (ie, related:swissarmylibrarian.net). This seems just oddly interesting, but there has got to be a very good application
The page also gives some great examples of how these can be combined. It's always good to learn how to search smarter, and it's certainly a conversation starter when patrons see me typing in these weird codes and getting better results than they do - always on the lookout for those teaching moments.
Thanks Chris, and to the faculty of the Valencia Community College for compiling the list. There are also other lists, too, but this one was very helpful.
January 15th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
[…] Tips on Better Google Searches…01.15.09 15 01 2009 Here are some helfpul Google search comments from The Swiss Army Librarian entitled “Building Better Google Searches“: […]
January 31st, 2009 at 10:28 am
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