If I had a nickel for every time I heard, “I Googled it but couldn’t find it”, I’d be a rich woman. In fact, the desired information was probably returned as one of the millions of results, but the user didn’t have time to look at the whole list. Who could blame a person for not wanting to sift through pages and pages of results just to find one gem?
Thankfully, Google has some tools built in for advanced searching. Some of them are obvious, such as the list of options for refining the search that appear on the left side of the Google search page. Others are not so obvious. I have found a couple of sources that will help you on your way to becoming a Google search guru, able to get exactly what you are looking for to show up on page one of your results.
This infographic from the folks at HackCollege gives a great overview of some of the most helpful search terms (operators) to help you narrow your search field. Another great resource is this article by John Tedesco, reporting on a speech given by Google employee Daniel Russell.
If you don’t want to memorize all of these tips, try using Google’s own Advanced Search page. To get there, go to http://www.google.com/advanced_search. Or, start with a basic search. On the results page, click the gear icon in the upper right corner. Select “Advanced Search” from the resulting menu.
Happy searching!