Google - advanced searching

Google has lots of options you can use to limit and filter your search if you go to Advanced Search – look under the cog wheel.  However this sometimes disappears so it can be useful to know some of the search commands you can use.

Here are some examples of what you can do.

“search term”

Enclosing a phrase in quotes will ensure that Google searches for it as a phrase and not as two separate search terms

-  (minus sign)

Using a minus sign in front of a word means that Google will not retrieve results containing that search term.

Manchester –united

site:

This command allows you to search within large websites or particular domains

site:nhs.uk

site:twitter.com

intext:

Prefix a search term with this command to force Google to use exactly what you typed rather than automatically including synonyms.

filetype:

This command lets you search by the type of file.

filetype:mp3

filetype:docx

N.B. Google won’t find doc and docx unless you include a command for both of them in your search.

Numeric range

You can use this with anything related to numbers –temperatures, weights, distances, prices.  Simply type in your two numbers separated by two full stops.

Sony TV £300..500

Compare

This isn’t actually a Google command but it works like this: - type in a search in the format compare carrots with cabbage

Google will then create a table comparing the two items – do take care though as Google can get it wrong!

Check out this Google help page for more information on Search Operators