|
type |
description |
effect |
|
individual words |
each word must be
on pages, or in links pointing to pages that show up in the
results |
gordon brown
will ask
Google for pages that have the words "brown" & "gordon" on them
somewhere. |
|
words in quotes |
words in quotes
appear next to each other as a phrase in the result pages |
"gordon brown"
will ask
Google for pages where the exact phrase "Gordon Brown" appears. |
asterisk
between words |
second word
appears 1, 2 or 3 words after the first word |
margaret *
thatcher will
bring up pages with "Margaret Hilda Thatcher", "Margaret and
husband Denis Thatcher" |
AROUND(x)
between
words |
Like the above,
but allows you to set the proximity between keywords |
obama
AROUND(2) cameron will
bring up pages where the word cameron is within two words of
obama |
tilde (~)
before word |
finds pages with
related words |
~teacher will
find pages with teacher, teach, taught, education etc. |
minus (-)
before word |
makes sure pages
containing that word are omitted from results |
hermits -herman's will
eliminate the pop group from a search for isolated loners. |
OR
between words |
ensures either or
both words appear on pages in search results |
tourism
expenditure OR revenuewill
help get stories about money spent by tourists.
tourism
expenditure OR revenue scotland OR scottish OR Glasgow OR
edinburgh will
gives several options aimed at capturing Scottish tourism, in
one search |
site:
before address or full/partial domain name |
makes sure results
come from specified address or domain |
tourism
site:scotland.gov
will restrict a search for tourism to the scotish executive
website
tourism
site:ac.uk
will restrict the search to British universities
scotland holiday site:profiles.myspace.com
OR site:bebo.com OR site:facebook.com OR site:xanga.com
will
restrict the search to social networking sites |
filetype:
before a data file extension |
ensures a certain
kind of document appears in a search |
tourism
site:scotland.gov filetype:xls
will find
spreadsheets mentioning tourism from the Scottish Executive.
Other file types
include pdf, ppt and doc |
|
inurl: |
places a word in
the web addresses of pages suggested by Google |
"time travel"
inurl:faq
might get you quick easy answers on a tricky subject
"david bowie"
inurl:gallery
may get you pages with images of Bowie |
|
Other Google advanced search operators |
