We all know how to ‘Google’ something. Or do we?
There are ways and means to ensure you get exactly what you’re looking for in your search results.
1. Use Google’s Advanced Search to reduce the number of irrelevant results.
As well as specifying which words to include in your search, you can choose to return results in a particular language, timescale and format or restrict your search to one domain to look for items from a specific site.
2. If you need to keep an eye on a particular topic, Google Alerts will inform you of online updates.
Type the phrase you wish to monitor into the dialog box on the right, select one of the search options (news, blogs, a mixture and so on) and how often you’ll receive reports, then enter an email address.
3. A simple way to find information from a specific website is to enter your search followed by ‘site:[domain name]’.
For example, if you want to find out what is available on the British Library for Henry VIII, enter ‘Henry VIII site:bl.uk’. Then use ‘Search within results’ to refine the results still further.
4. Google ignores certain words, such as ‘the’ and ‘how’.
Insert a plus sign before these to include them in the search. Using the minus sign before any word returns pages without that term. These function like the Boolean operators AND and NOT. You can also use OR to find results with one or more of your terms.
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