How To Search Google Like a Pro
Sydney's Seminar
Although most of us are well versed in how to search topics on Google, you may not know that there is a way to Search Google Like a Pro. Typically, we go to the Google browser and type a basic search inquiry for what we would like to know. For instance, if you wanted a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, you may type into Google “Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe.”
When you search this, you will find an absurd number of results.
Now, there is no way we could even begin to comb through millions of results to find the best chocolate chip recipe. Most of us, at this point, would pick a random recipe at the top of the results, but that’s not always best. Instead, let’s whittle the results down to get a set of more meaningful results.
Here is a link for Google Advanced Search.
GOOGLE ADVANCED SEARCH
You will find an array of fields at this web address to get more specific results. Type the words you want Google to search in the first field. This is a very unspecific option, as it will pull up all of the results for each word you type. In our example of chocolate chip cookie recipes, your results will show for every internet web page with the word “chocolate” and so on for each word entered.
Because that search pulls up many unnecessary pages, we’ll want to filter down the results using the second field, ‘this exact word or phrase.’ If we type in our search, ‘chocolate chip cookie recipe,’ we will only get results with that exact string of words in that exact order.
This cuts our results from 175 million to only 1.2 million.
GRAPHICAL OPTIONS
In the “Recommended Charts” pop-up, you’ll see two tabs up at the top. If you click “All Charts,” you’ll see every possible chart type that you can use to represent your data. In this example, I will be working with a Column Chart, so I will click “Column” in the left-hand options and select my preferred graph. Once I hit OK, the chart will appear next to my data in the spreadsheet.
SPECIAL KEYWORDS
Still, we want a more realistic set of results, so let’s filter it further.
I prefer chewy, soft cookies, so we type ‘chewy’ and ‘soft’ into the next field. Also, I definitely want cookies that are full of butter and flour, so in the next field, I will ask that the search exclude ‘vegan’ and ‘gluten-free’ cookies.
Through this filtering, I’m down to 147,000 results that are much more likely to be helpful to me.
THEN NARROW YOUR RESULTS BY…
While we’ve already cut our results to .08% of those we get from simply searching for a chocolate chip cookie recipe, the lower half of this advanced search lets us continue to tailor our results. In this section, picking the language may be helpful, although the other options would be more helpful in other research projects.
In brief, the other fields allow you to choose a region that the website was published when a site was last updated, where the terms you’re searching appear on the webpage, and the file type of any publications. You can also pick what kind of domain you’d like your search to pull up, which would be helpful, for instance, if you only wanted to pull up US government websites using the .gov domain.
LET US KNOW
We hope this brief lesson on using Google Advanced Search will help you in your future research to cut through the clutter of the internet. If you would like extra training or tips on performing searches on web browsers, never hesitate to call Clark Computer Services at 301-456-6931 or email us at [email protected].
Being raised by Clark’s owner, Darren, I have always been immersed in the world of technology. However, I have always followed it from a distance. I went to college to get my degree in Business Finance and Applied Economics, as I have always been a fan of research and statistics. I was even lucky enough to get my senior thesis in economics published. My next string of luck was getting a job straight out of college as a Researcher in Richmond, VA. I was able to pursue research and publish dozens of news articles in my field. Now, I am so excited to delve back into the world of technology that I was raised in, and look forward to honing my research in the technological field.
