Google, best known for its search engine, is the largest website in the world. It has millions of websites indexed and you can easily find what you need at the click of a button. When searching on Google, keep these quick tips in mind to use their search engine more efficiently.
Include a keyword in quotes to raise its priority
For example, searching for “nonfiction” books to specifically include the word nonfiction when searching for books.
Put a hyphen infront of a keyword to exclude a word
For example, cars -diesel to exclude results including diesel.
Be general about your search
- Instead of searching i have a flat tire, try how to fix flat tire or flat tire repair.
- Instead of my arm hurts, try arm pain or arm pain treatment.
- While using how before your search, like how do you say the word brewery or how to translate brewery, is helpful, you can also use easier combinations like define brewery or brewery pronounce and you’ll get many more helpful dictionary options.
Include important words
If searching for weather, you can use weather ##### and replacing the hashtag/pound sign with your zip code to see the weather near you. For restaurants, types of foods, stores, jeans, etc., using seafood ##### for example gets results tailored to a specific type and location.
You can aso add site:website.com after your search term to search only specific websites. For example, to search the official Wikipedia page on Tiktok, you can search tiktok site:wikipedia.org.
Small mistakes like spelling and capitalization are sometimes autocorrected
You can search facrbouk instead of facebook and the official facebook.com website will still be first, with Google telling you it is showing you results for the most common fix.
You can even type in mathematical equations right into the search box. You can use the number or word format, for example both “four times four equals” and “4×4=” will bring up the correct result of 16.
Learn more search tips on Google’s official support article here.