Search engines on the Internet are constantly evolving, in order to improve their algorithms and offer better results to the users who use them. However, no matter how much you evolve, they are still far from perfect. This means that users often do not find the results they were looking for. In this article we present 10 tricks you can use to search Google more efficiently, and get more relevant results.
Exact phrase search
The exact phrase search consists of putting quotation marks around the terms to be searched on Google . This simple trick makes the algorithm find and exactly the words that we have indicated, in addition to doing it in the exact order in which we have put them.
Thanks to this simple trick we can obtain greater precision in our searches on Google. With this, we will be able to exclude results that are common to those we intend to obtain, but which are not relevant.
An example of this would be the search Joe Bloggs. If we put it like this, the Google algorithm will give us results that include both Joe and Bloggs, but do not necessarily include both terms. On the other hand, if we write "Joe Bloggs", it will offer us only results that include both terms.
Exclude search terms
Another very useful trick is to type a term in google search. To use this trick, we just have to place the symbol "-" in front of the term we want to exclude .
If we go back to the previous example, when typing in the Google search engine Joe -Bloggs will return all the results that include the term Joe, but will automatically discard all those that include the term Bloggs.
Show one result or another
We can also tell Google to return all results that include only one of the two terms that we have included in the search. To use this trick, we just have to place the "OR" operator between both terms .
For example, we can Google the search Samsung OR Apple. This will return all results that include the term Samsung or the term Apple, but will immediately discard all results that include both terms.
Search for synonyms
The synonym search is also quite useful, which we can do within Google. This will not be of much help, in cases where it is not clear what is the term that the editors will have used to write their results.
For example, if we include ~ school in the Google search engine, its algorithm will return the results that correspond to school, but also those that correspond to synonyms or very similar words, such as schools, institutes and even universities.
Search within a specific website
Another very useful trick to search within Google is to make it return all the results that correspond to a certain website. For this we will have to enter the command site: in front of the domain to be searched .
For example, if we type in google site: tuexperto.com, it will return all the results that correspond to this website. This is something very useful to see the contents that are indexed within a certain internet portal. Therefore, it is a command widely used by those who are dedicated to SEO.
We point out that this trick can be combined with any of the previous ones or those that follow, to make it even more advanced and powerful.
The asterisk as a wild card
Asterisks act as a wildcard within search engines. These are often used to replace a search term, and allow Google to return more comprehensive results.
For example, if we search for a pizzeria in Madrid, the Google algorithm will return pizzerias that are only in the city of Madrid. On the other hand, if we type pizzeria in *, it will return a list of pizzerias that are in many cities, and not only in Madrid.
It also serves to broaden search terms , for example, the search for architect * will search for architect, but also architecture, architectural, architectures and even other words like architectural.
Search between two values
Searching for something between two values may be the best way to get the answer to our question. We can do it in a very simple way within the Google search engine by writing the first search term, colon, space, and the second search term .
For example, if you are looking for who were the Spanish Prime Ministers between 1980 and 1990, you can do the British Prime Minister 1980 .. 1990 search. This will return the results that include all the ministers, that the United Kingdom has had between the two years indicated.
Search a result by word in the body, title or URL of a page
This is another tactic widely used by SEOs and website content writers. The inurl: qualifier will search just inside the URL, the intext: qualifier will search within the body, while intitle: will search within the title of a page.
For example, intitle: analysis will display all articles with "analysis" in the page title.
Related site search
The related is very useful to find similar websites. For example, searching for related: tuexpertocom will show the websites of other news outlets that Google considers most similar to Tuexperto.
Combine all of the above
The last trick that we show you is to combine all the previous methods to improve the results you will get when doing a search within Google. While some of them can be used only rarely, some are useful in almost all cases.
As Google and other search engines improve their understanding of the way people type, or naturally say search queries, these tools are likely to become less and less useful, or at least that is the purpose for which search engines are working.