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The Google search engine isn’t that hard to use – everyone can use it. It’s a fast and simple way of finding what you want. But lets face it, sometimes it can really get your blood pressure going above healthy levels.

Isn’t it sometimes frustrating sometimes going through page after page of Google search result? Sometimes the search engine seems to find everything but the search phrase you entered. This easy to use search guide will probably not solve all of your search problems but it will give you some useful techniques on how to get better search results with Google. To avoid scaring you away, this article will focus on the more common and useful tricks.

Basic Search Options

These operators are the basic of ”Googling”. If you didn’t already know them you now have the opportunity. Try them out and you will quickly see the advantages.

• + By adding the plus in front of a word you force the search result to include the word(s).
  Example: No +country +for +old +men will give you a search results including all those words, in any order.

• - The minus does, as you can imagine, the opposite to the plus.
  Example: No +country +for +old +men -Coen will give you the same search result as above but excludes all hits including Coen

• ” ” By putting your search phrase within quotation marks you will force the search excluding everything that doesn’t have your exact quotation. The quotation marks are very useful and can effectively be used with other search operators.
  Example: ”No country for old men” -”Ethan Coen” +Joel Coen

• OR To widen your search results you can use OR between your search words. The search result will then include your first word and/or the second. This will widen
  Example: “No country for old men” OR “Donnie Darko” will give you search results including both movies in the example in separate or same search hit.

Less common, But Effective Search Options

These search operators seems to be unknown to many people, so if you didn’t already know them you should really try them out. Although they’re not used very often they can sometimes be very useful and save yourself a lot of time going through page after page of search results.

• ~ By adding this symbol in front of a word you will get search results including similar words. If you only want the similar words showing you should add the word again with a minus.
  Example: No country for old ~men -men will give you search results including similar words to men, like ”man”, ”guys”, and so on (in this case excluding ”men”).

• * The asterisk before, between or after a word will let Google fill in the gap. If you know all words but one in a sentence you could use the asterisk.
  Example: No * for old men will give you the filled in search result of ”No country for old men”.

• Site: With the site search option you can search for a word within a website. This can be very effective searching through forums and similar.
  Example: Site:Movietome.com “No country for old men” will give you search results of the entered search phrase within the entered website.

• Intitle: The intitle search option will limit the search result to hits that have the entered search phrase in its title.
  Example: Intitle:”No country for old men” will limit the search result titles with the search phrase.

• Filetype: As the name of the search option says; use this if you want to find specific filetype. This can be a good search option for PDF-files, and so on. To make the search result more specific you could combine it with the ”Intitle:”-option mentioned above.
  Example: filetype:pdf intitle:coen will give you search results of PDF-files with the the search phrase ”Coen” in its titles.

Other Effective Search Tricks

Unlike the search options above, these aren’t the kinds you enter in the search field (excluding the last one). You have probably already seen them, and hopefully used them. If you haven’t you should try them out, as they are as important in basic “Googling” as the + -.  Combined directly or parallel with each other and the above mentioned tricks you can get the most out of your search results.

• Advanced search
  By using the ”Advanced search”, next to the search field, you can use many of the above mentioned search options. Just follow the instructions in the field. If your search phrase comes to look more like a formula, then this might be a good option. If you prefer using the advanced search instead of entering the options yourself, you should create a direct link to ”www.google/advanced_search” for easy access.

• Images
  If you’re looking for people, celebrities or regular Joe, you can often find what your searching for faster using Googles Image search. It will give you thumbnails that you easily can scan through. You will find the link in the top left corner of the Google main page. You can limit your search to image sizes, colors, content, and so on.

• Cache
  Sometimes you find exactly what you looking for, only to realise that the server of the page is down and you can’t access it. By simply clicking the ”Cached” link below the search result will give you a rough copy of the page, temporary saved by Google. The Cache can also be used if you’re suspicious (virus/ads or whatever) about the content of a page. By using the cache you will limit the risk and can preview it before entering.

• Translation
  Sometimes you don’t seem to find what you’re looking for anywhere. The only hits that seems to have anything to do with your search phrase is in page written in foreign language. Thankfully many of these pages can be translated. Just click the Translate link and you will be linked to a automatic rough translation of the page content. The grammatics may not be perfect, and some words can’t be translated, but you will most probably be able to decipher most of it.

• Calculator
  Instead of opening your OS calculator you could quickly calculate with Google. Simply enter you equation as a search phrase. It works with + – / * (example: 12*10). You can also convert units (example: 12 meters in yards).