Somerville Public Library Blog

Last time we discussed limiting your search to specific types of sites, file types and limiting your site to searches with images. All well and good, but those are only a few of the tricks you can use to get optimal results when you use Google. Here are some more:

One way to refine your search results is to exclude words. To continue with one of our examples from last time, let’s say you recall this really great PowerPoint presentation on time management, and you would like to review it and take notes.  However, the time management presentation that crops up a lot when you do a Google search is one by your annoying co-worker Collins, and you don’t want that. Simply type in your Google search box “time management” -Collins filetype:ppt. The minus sign before “Collins” tells Google to eliminate all files that contain that word from your search results.

Broaden your search by telling Google to include synonyms. Suppose you’re feeling uneasy about drinking bottled water, and you’re wondering how much pollution that generates. You know Google can be too literal sometimes, and you don’t want exclude good information just because of your word choice. Type “bottled water” ~pollution. The tilda (yes, that’s what that’s called) tells Google to include documents that contain synonyms for pollution in the search results.
Limit your search to a specific time period. Suppose when you’re doing the search described above you want only the latest information. Click on the little blue link immediately to the right of the search box that says “Advanced Search.” On the new screen, type your search terms in the top box, then go to the bottom of the screen and click on the link that says, “Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more.” Immediately below you’ll see some pulldown menus. Click on the one labeled “Date,” and choose “past 24 hours,” “past week,” “past month,” or “past year.”

Easy, no?

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2010 at 3:54 pm and is filed under News You Can Use, Online Resources.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.