ERIC SPELLMANN

Advanced searching made easy

A friend once told me that “searching the internet is akin to finding a particular grain of sand in the Sahara Desert”. While that may be a bit over the top, I completely understand his frustration. 

Whenever I go to my favourite search site, Google (and don't forget the UK-specific version www.google.co.uk - Ed), and type some keywords into their basic search blank, I inevitably discover that the answer I am seeking lies somewhere within two million pages!

To avoid this situation, use Google’s Advanced Search Options. You can find this page either by clicking the Advanced Search link just to the right of Google’s search blank or by going straight to:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search

Once there, don’t let this busy screen intimidate you. You are looking at the best tool to find your Net answers quickly.  Let’s start at the top ...

Find Results

Have you ever heard the phrase Boolean Logic? Basically, it’s the process of turning your search into a mathematical algorithm (something the computer can comprehend). Three major logical tools are used in this process: AND, OR, and NOT. AND is used to guarantee that two or more search keywords exist on a page in order for it to qualify as a “hit”. OR allows one, some, or all of the words to exist. NOT prevents a keyword combination.

The first blank “with all the words” is an inferred AND. Typing in a bunch of keywords will ONLY return pages that contain ALL of them. The next blank, “with the exact phrase” is also an inferred AND, but requires the words to be in the order you typed them. This blank is perfect for typing movie and book titles. I’ve even used it to find the source of famous quotes and song titles. I just type in a piece of the quote or song, and Google finds all instances of the phrase.

Next, you’ll see “with at least one of the words”. Can you guess which Boolean operator is inferred here? That’s right: OR. A word of warning, here, though. Using this blank will return the highest number of hits (since only one of your keywords need be present). I rarely use it.

The final blank in this section (“without the words”) has some very interesting uses. For instance, let’s say I was interested in all web documents pertaining to the book David Copperfield. If those two words are all I type in the second blank (“with the exact phrase”), what will I get back? That’s right: a mixture of sites talking about the book and the current-day master-illusionist. 

To weed out pages pertaining to the famous prestidigitator, I simply add the word “magic” to the “without the words” blank. Try it and see what happens. By adding this one word, you filter out about 12,900 irrelevant pages. Wow!

In the next section, make sure you set the language to English, unless you want foreign-language pages appearing in the mix. And believe it or not, Google catalogues more than just web pages. Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, and Acrobat documents are also included in the database. To narrow your search, choose it here in the File Types section. The next option, Date, is very useful in weeding out archaic pages. If you want the most up-to-date information on your subject, choose “past three months”.

Occurrences allows you to customize the relevance of your search terms. By choosing “in the title of the page”, you can make sure that the page is TRULY related to your keywords and doesn’t just mention it in some random paragraph. Domain is useful to search a site WITHOUT using that site’s internal search. For instance, the Microsoft Knowledge Base is very nice, but I prefer Google’s tools. Whenever I need to search the ENTIRE Microsoft site, I use this blank to narrow my results to the microsoft.com domain.

Depending on your search terms, you may want to turn the SafeSearch on or off. As an example, if you are looking for information on “breast cancer”, I would strongly recommend you turn on this filter.

Finally, the last section allows you to find pages that are “similar” to a particular page. It will make sense when you try it. And, the last blank, Links is a neat way to find out which websites are linking to YOUR website.

I’ll see you in Cyberspace!

www.EricSpellmann.com

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