Google Search has built-in commands to help users refine their queries and find more relevant results.
Here are some you can utilize next time the results you’re seeing aren’t very useful:
- Search for an exact match: Put a word or phrase inside quotes.
- Combine searches: Put “OR” between each search query.
- Exclude words from search results: Put – in front of a word you want to leave out.
- Social media searches: Put @ in front of a word to search social media.
- Price searches: Put $ in front of a number.
- Hashtag searches: Put # in front of a word.
- Search within a range of numbers: Put .. between two numbers.
- Search for a specific site: Put “site:” in front of a site or domain.
- Search for related sites: Put “related:” in front of a web address you already know.
- See Google’s cached version of a site: Put “cache:” in front of the site address.
Note that in order for these operators to work there cannot be any spaces between the command and the search term.
For example, a search for site:obrienmedia.co.uk will work, but site: obrienmedia.co.uk won’t.
Those are just a handful of the many available search operators available.