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Active: 542 users

How to use Google search.

Blogs > IzzyCraft
Post a Reply
IzzyCraft
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States4487 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-03-17 18:40:53
March 17 2009 17:47 GMT
#1
How to use Google search so you don't look like an idiot when you ask TeamLiquid to find it for you.
Oh yeah don't thank me i got lazy and plagiarized a lot of this stuff from the Google help section that people don't ever seem to look over. Not because i couldn't tell it to you in my own words just because their words are so much better in truth i wrote the mass of this stuff in short then visited the google page you can obviously tell where i copy pasted then formated stuff they use [ ] instead of " ".


THE ALL MIGHTY HELP SECTION
It's a link click it, learn.



Lets end threads that end in trolling flame after the first response is a "there i googled it for you was that hard?"

The Basics
  • Keep it simple. If you're looking for a particular company, just enter its name, or as much of its name as you can recall. If you're looking for a particular concept, place, or product, start with its name. If you're looking for a pizza restaurant, just enter pizza and the name of your town or your zip code. Most queries do not require advanced operators or unusual syntax. Simple is good.
  • Think how the page you are looking for will be written. A search engine is not a human, it is a program that matches the words you give to pages on the web. Use the words that are most likely to appear on the page. For example, instead of saying [ my head hurts ], say [ headache ], because that's the term a medical page will use. The query [ in what country are bats considered an omen of good luck? ] is very clear to a person, but the document that gives the answer may not have those words. Instead, use the query [ bats are considered good luck in ] or even just [ bats good luck ], because that is probably what the right page will say.
  • Describe what you need with as few terms as possible. The goal of each word in a query is to focus it further. Since all words are used, each additional word limits the results. If you limit too much, you will miss a lot of useful information. The main advantage to starting with fewer keywords is that, if you don't get what you need, the results will likely give you a good indication of what additional words are needed to refine your results on the next search. For example, [ weather cancun ] is a simple way to find the weather and it is likely to give better results than the longer [ weather report for cancun mexico ].
  • Choose descriptive words. The more unique the word is the more likely you are to get relevant results. Words that are not very descriptive, like 'document,' 'website,' 'company,' or 'info,' are usually not needed. Keep in mind, however, that even if the word has the correct meaning but it is not the one most people use, it may not match the pages you need. For example, [ celebrity ringtones ] is more descriptive and specific than [ celebrity sounds ].
  • Use specialized searches if you are trying to find books sources guess what Google has a Book Search
    http://books.google.com/bkshp?hl=en&tab=wp

Tricks to enhance an otherwise hard search
Using das operators.
YES YOU FOOL Google has operators more then just " "
  • " "
          By putting quotations around a set of words or a Phrase search you are telling Google this order is actually important although you may get your search without the quotations this moves up such pages from page 109 to just page 2. Google already uses the order and the fact that the words are together as a very strong signal and will stray from it only for a good reason, so quotes are usually unnecessary. By insisting on phrase search you might be missing good results accidentally. For example, a search for [i]Alexander Bell[i] will miss the pages that refer to Alexander G. Bell.

  • +
          Now for addition Google employs synonyms automatically, so that it finds pages that mention, for example, childcare for the query [ child care ] (with a space), or California history for the query [ ca history ]. But sometimes Google helps out a little too much and gives you a synonym when you don't really want it. By attaching a + immediately before a word (remember, don't add a space after the +), you are telling Google to match that word precisely as you typed it. Putting double quotes around the word will do the same thing, thus something like +Awesome is the same as if you searched "Awesome" google will only look for awesome not great or cool or anything that relates it will look only for that word.

  • Site:
          This one you should already be fimilar with by useing Teamliquid search failing then clicking on the Google Tl.net button and finding a google search. Google allows you to specify that your search results must come from a given website. For example, the query [ iraq site:nytimes.com ] will return pages about Iraq but only from nytimes.com. The simpler queries [ iraq nytimes.com ] or [ iraq New York Times ] will usually be just as good, though they might return results from other sites that mention the New York Times. You can also specify a whole class of sites, for example [ iraq site:.gov ] will return results only from a .gov domain and [ iraq site:.iq ] will return results only from Iraqi sites.

  • -
          Back back you unwated bastards! Attaching a minus sign immediately before a word indicates that you do not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded with a space. For example, in the query [ anti-virus software ], the minus sign is used as a hypen and will not be interpreted as an exclusion symbol; whereas the query [ anti-virus -software ] will search for the words 'anti-virus' but exclude references to software. You can exclude as many words as you want by using the - sign in front of all of them, for example [ jaguar -cars -football -os ].

  • *
          Okay this has nothing to do with multiplication but the *, or wildcard, is a little-known feature that can be very powerful. If you include * within a query, it tells Google to try to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches. For example, the search [ Google * ] will give you results about many of Google's products (go to next page and next page -- we have many products). The query [ Obama voted * on the * bill ] will give you stories about different votes on different bills. Note that the * operator works only on whole words, not parts of words

  • OR
          Google's default behavior is to consider all the words in a search. If you want to specifically allow either one of several words, you can use the OR operator (note that you have to type 'OR' in ALL CAPS). For example, [ San Francisco Giants 2004 OR 2005 ] will give you results about either one of these years, whereas [ San Francisco Giants 2004 2005 ] (without the OR) will show pages that include both years on the same page. The symbol | can be substituted for OR. (The AND operator, by the way, is the default, so it is not needed.)

Exceptions
      Search is rarely absolute. Search engines use a variety of techniques to imitate how people think and to approximate their behavior. As a result, most rules have exceptions. For example, the query [ for better or for worse ] will not be interpreted by Google as an OR query, but as a phrase that matches a (very popular) comic strip. Google will show calculator results for the query [ 34 * 87 ] rather than use the 'Fill in the blanks' operator. Both cases follow the obvious intent of the query.

Exceptions to 'Every word matters'
  • Words that are commonly used, like 'the,' 'a,' and 'for,' are usually ignored (these are called stop words). But there are even exceptions to this exception. The search [ the who ] likely refers to the band; the query [ who ] probably refers to the World Health Organization -- Google will not ignore the word 'the' in the first query.
  • Synonyms might replace some words in your original query. (Adding + before a word disables synonyms.)
  • A particular word might not appear on a page in your results if there is sufficient other evidence that the page is relevant. The evidence might come from language analysis that Google has done or many other sources. For example, the query [ overhead view of the bellagio pool ] will give you nice overhead pictures from pages that do not include the word 'overhead.'

Punctuation that is not ignored
  • Punctuation in popular terms that have particular meanings, like [ C++ ] or [ C# ] (both are names of programming languages), are not ignored.
  • The dollar sign ($) is used to indicate prices. [ nikon 400 ] and [ nikon $400 ] will give different results.
  • The hyphen - is sometimes used as a signal that the two words around it are very strongly connected. (Unless there is no space after the - and a space before it, in which case it is a negative sign.)
  • The underscore symbol _ is not ignored when it connects two words, e.g. [ quick_sort ].


I have ass for brains so,
even when I shit I'm droping knowledge.
HeavOnEarth
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
United States7087 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-03-17 17:52:23
March 17 2009 17:50 GMT
#2

Lets end threads that end in trolling flame after the first response is a "there i googled it for you was that hard?

noo never
http://lmgtfy.com/ FTW
good thread though ^ ^

Oh yeah don't thank me i got lazy and plagiarized a lot of this stuff from the Google help section that people don't ever seem to look over.

meh didn't know there was a help section
"come korea next time... FXO house... 10 korean, 10 korean"
Kennelie
Profile Joined December 2007
United States2296 Posts
March 17 2009 17:55 GMT
#3
lol I didn't know there was a help section. Usually I always get google to find what I am looking for.
ya had ya shot kid!
IzzyCraft
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States4487 Posts
March 17 2009 17:55 GMT
#4
This will help those geek looking for Yu-Gi-Oh but get GX 5D then cry lol I really can't think of anything else although it took me like an hour to find a place to get ["Yu-Gi-Oh" -GX -5D Subs OR Subtitles] for my little cuzzo
I have ass for brains so,
even when I shit I'm droping knowledge.
JeeJee
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Canada5652 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-03-17 18:11:14
March 17 2009 18:09 GMT
#5
should throw in a bit more on google calculator, it's awesome
it can do conversions for instance
500 CAD to USD, 5 oz to lb, etc. are all calculator-valid queries

there's a bunch of other qualifiers that are sometimes useful such as filetype: to return files of a specific type (really, i've only found this useful while looking for flash games.. filetype:swf ftw! or a certain document on a certain webpage. i.e. the query site:uwaterloo.ca filetype:pdf degree requirements is much stronger than uwaterloo pdf degree requirements)

p.s. i remember a time when the search query 'the who' returned no results. xD
(\o/)  If you want it, you find a way. Otherwise you find excuses. No exceptions.
 /_\   aka Shinbi (requesting a name change since 27/05/09 ☺)
IzzyCraft
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States4487 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-03-17 18:38:44
March 17 2009 18:12 GMT
#6
Yeah thought of that those are features of google search that i just got too lazy and was hoping that people would just click the link to see features like using weather or sports etc.

I only made this because i got bored looking up UBB code for teamliquid.net like i didn't know you can [center] things

I have ass for brains so,
even when I shit I'm droping knowledge.
paper
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
13196 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-03-17 18:28:27
March 17 2009 18:28 GMT
#7
[ hr ] too :s
Hates Fun🤔
cgrinker
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States3824 Posts
March 17 2009 18:30 GMT
#8
I can use the google
motbob
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
United States12546 Posts
March 17 2009 18:41 GMT
#9
+ is going to be incredible helpful, thanks.
ModeratorGood content always wins.
IzzyCraft
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States4487 Posts
March 17 2009 18:41 GMT
#10
On March 18 2009 03:28 paper wrote:
[ hr ] too :s

ty formating is much more fun then actually spelling the words correctly.
I have ass for brains so,
even when I shit I'm droping knowledge.
0xDEADBEEF
Profile Joined September 2007
Germany1235 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-03-17 19:32:53
March 17 2009 19:20 GMT
#11
define:WORD
What it says

QUERY inurl:WORD or allinurl:WORD1 WORD2 WORDn
The specified words must appear in the URL of the page

cache:URL
Show the cached version of the site (useful if site is offline. Next step would be to visit archive.org)

info:URL
Find information about that site
Yizuo
Profile Joined December 2004
Germany1537 Posts
March 17 2009 20:50 GMT
#12
nice thread
dont want to derail, but this pic comes to mind
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]
LeperKahn
Profile Blog Joined April 2008
Romania1838 Posts
March 17 2009 21:05 GMT
#13
Holy crap... I had no idea that you could do this. School research just got super easy.
CJ Entusman #14 • http://soundcloud.com/discodinosaur • https://discosaur.bandcamp.com/
mahnini
Profile Blog Joined October 2005
United States6862 Posts
March 17 2009 21:17 GMT
#14
you actually need a guide to know how to google? peasants
the world's a playground. you know that when you're a kid, but somewhere along the way everyone forgets it.
IzzyCraft
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States4487 Posts
March 17 2009 21:37 GMT
#15
Rather be a peasant then a peon ammrite?
I have ass for brains so,
even when I shit I'm droping knowledge.
MamiyaOtaru
Profile Blog Joined September 2008
United States1687 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-03-17 21:42:14
March 17 2009 21:38 GMT
#16
These operators can be combined as well.

I do a lot of
"unreal tournament" -"unreal tournament 3" -"unreal tournament 2003" -"unreal tournament 2004"
when searching for stuff about the original UT. Wish there was an easier way to do that, but at least a way exists.

Hadn't ever had a reason to do this, but I just combined OR and "".
"patriots lose" OR "giants win"
gets me pages with either string. Nice.
liger13
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
United States1060 Posts
March 17 2009 21:45 GMT
#17
nice, known most of these,,,
but its funny how many dont,

hopefully many will ask less, and google
I feel like pwning noobs
paper
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
13196 Posts
March 18 2009 00:36 GMT
#18
the irony is that those who need this advice the most wont click this thread YAY
Hates Fun🤔
IzzyCraft
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States4487 Posts
March 18 2009 01:13 GMT
#19
Probably never hit the forum button to see blogs are listed in when the op was made not when the last post was like the rest of the forums.
I have ass for brains so,
even when I shit I'm droping knowledge.
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