Tech’ top tips – #22. Getting to grips with Google – part 1

This tip is provided by the Centre for Enhancing Learning through Technology (CELT).

Did you know that you can use a few techniques to make your Google searches more accurate? Limiting your searches can help to weed out the superfluous information and help you search like a professional – here’s a few examples:

Technique Show me Link to results
Using “speech marks” we can tell Google to only return search results that contain the exact phrase with the words in the order they are typed. Search with speech marks Searching with speech marks
Alternatively, if you want to search for a number of words but you don’t mind in what order they appear use the ‘+’ symbol. Search with the + sign Searching with the + sign
Finally, if you know that you need to find a particular page or phrase on a specific website, use the site search tool. This will restrict Google to searching only within the specified website. Search a specific site Search a specific website

Click the links above to see how the three variations of the same search return different results.