Webupon

Many people know what
Google
is. To most of them, Google is an Internet search engine, where one can find a wealth of online resources, whether related to school, work or play. However, many people spend hours poring over the millions of pages of results without finding what they need. These people are making a big mistake: they think that the problem lies with Google. In fact, they, or rather the search terms they use, are at fault.

The relevance and quality of Google’s results depends entirely on what the words typed into the search box are. If one uses lousy search terms, one can only expect irrelevant results. The following consists of several tips on how to improve the quality of your search terms, resulting in better search results.

Firstly, use likely words. That is, instead of typing in questions into Google and expecting a straight answer in response, try searching for terms which will appear on the pages which you want. For example, if you want to search for information on how volcanoes are formed, you search for “volcanoes formation” instead of “How are volcanoes formed?” This is because Google finds pages which contain the search terms. It is not an intelligent being and will not attempt to analyze and answer your questions.

Secondly, try to be specific. It is better to use a more precise, less ambiguous term than a common one. If your query is too vague, it is unlikely to return relevant results. To illustrate this point, if you search for “Java”, what do you think Google includes in the first page of its results? It might include information about an island in Indonesia, a beverage made from coffee beans, or a programming language. In either case, you might not get what you are looking for. Thus, instead of searching for “Java”, one should search for “Java Indonesia”, “Java coffee” or “Java programming language”.

Lastly, there are lots of special characters which can be used to greatly improve the relevance of the search results. One of the most important characters is the quotation mark. You should place search terms in quotation marks if you want Google to return pages with that exact quoted phrase. This is useful for phrases, names, or a set of words in specific order. For example, to search for information on the author of Lord of the Flies, place “William Golding” in quotes. If not, results might include names such as “William Shakespeare” or “Mike Golding”.

In conclusion, one can greatly narrow their search results down to the most relevant level if one chooses his search terms carefully, applying some basic concepts like those mentioned above. For more informative tips on using Google effectively, you can Google “using Google effectively”, in quotes.