December 16, 2003

I've used several search engines over the course of time and still at times use more than one.  Lately, I usually use Google since it is recognized as the best on the web at this time.  There are a lot of features available rather than just typing in a word or phrase, so I'd like to explain how to use Google in a little more detail in the hopes it may help you to do a search which will provide the results you're looking for.

You want to limit the search to the type of things you are looking for without having a search turn up hundreds or thousands of sites.  We all know you can go to Google and just type in a word, or words, but let's explore what else you can do. 

The information you type in is referred to as the syntax.  There are some things you need to consider when typing in what you are looking for.  First of all make sure to type in exactly what you are looking for as close as possible.  The queries are automatically looking for an "and" formula.  For example if you type in hawaii vacation, it will first look for the phrase hawaii vacation, then it will look for the individual word hawaii and the individual word vacation.

If you only want it to find the phrase you use the quotation marks "hawaii vacation". Again, don't use capital letters.  If you mistype a word, Google will attempt to ask you if you meant to spell it that way or whether you want to spell it another way.  The operators you can use are described here.  We will discuss some of them here.

One of the elements of a web page is the title.  When you click on add a Favorite in Internet Explorer pointing to a web site, the text in the page title is the text which appears automatically when you click on Add To Favorites.  It usually describes what the page is. 

If you wanted to search the web for keywords in page titles, you'd type in the Google search box: intitle:(the text you're searching for) 

If you wanted to find test in the page itself you'd type: intext:(the text you're searching for)

Site is one of my favorites.  For instance let's say you wanted to check Microsoft's web site for what would cause and error number 404.  Type in "error 404"site:microsoft.com This will cause Google to only check the Microsoft site for the error 404 information.

Using the quotation marks will also restrict the search so that it doesn't also look for the individual word error and the number 404.  You can also use the site command to only check certain sites.  For example "error 404"site:org will only check org sites with the org extension.

Looking for a phone number?  Try typing in the persons name followed by a coma, then the city followed by a coma, and the state.  You probably don't need the city.  Google will give you the listing along with a link for a map.  The only drawback to this is if people move, it may take a while for the new address and phone number to show up. If you experiment with it and look up the help, you'll find a lot more interesting things to do to make your Internet searches give you what you are looking for.

If you have any questions or comments, click