Google Search Tips - Top 10 Basic Things to Know

If you've glanced at "Google Search Tips - Before you begin", then you're ready for:
Top Ten basic things to know about Google Search:

1. Google searches are NOT case sensitive -- so just use lower case. (Exception: see the OR case in an upcoming post).
   
2. Google allows you to enter up to 32 words within the search query.
   
3. Google returns pages that include all of your search terms -- so, don't bother using and unless it's part of a phrase.
   
4. Be specific in choosing your terms -- luxury hotels Maui is better than tropical island hotels.
   
5. The order of your terms matters, too -- vacation beach fishing yields different results than fishing beach vacation.
   
6. Google ignores common words and characters such as where and how,as well as single digits and single letters, If a digit or letter is essential to your query, include it by putting a space then a "+" sign in front of it, or put quotation marks around two or more words. Example: star wars episode +i or "star wars episode i"
   
7. Phrase searches are particularly effective if you're searching for proper names ("george washington"), lyrics ("the long and winding road"), or other famous phrases ("this was their finest hour").
   
8. You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard. Example: "george * bush" finds George W. Bush. Example: "to * * * to be" finds "To be or not to be". You can also use this to find email addresses: "email * * ", or for example "email * * cnn.com"
   
9. Avoid a word or concept by putting a space then a "-" sign in front of it. For example, bass -music will find more mentions of bass fishing, while bass -fishing will yield pages related more to music and guitars.
   
10. Consider limiting the scope of a search by using the syntax for file type (filetype:). For example, filetype:ppt TechTaming finds mention of TechTaming in PowerPoint slides. Other formats include .pdf (Adobe Acrobat), .doc (Word) and .xls (Excel). Other search engines also let you query these formats.

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Google Search Tips - Before you begin

Before I proceed, I should emphasize that Google is not the only Web search tool out there. Take a look at Ask, AllTheWeb and Vivisimo or MSN search. Also, Search.com is a metasearch engine that spans dozens of leading search engines at once. Of course, there are specialized search databases too --LawCrawler is for all things law related, The Wayback Machine archives web sites, images and text, and SMEALSearch indexes freely available scholarly business information, to name just a few.

Google offers step-by-step instructions for searching and browsing its products on its Help and Basics of Search pages, and there are third-party sources such as Nancy Blachman's Google Guide if you want them.

The following two segments are a concise combination of the most useful information you'll find there, plus many more suggestions I've found and can recommend that you won't find there.

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