How to Get Great Search Results

Have you ever noticed that some people find what they want instantly with a search engine like Google? Then there are other people who get hundreds of thousands of results from a search, none of which are really what they are looking for. What's the secret to great search results? Let's see if I can reveal the secret.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• An Internet connection

1. Click Preferences

   Before you even do a search you can set your search preferences (at least at Google). At google.com, click the preferences link beside the search box.

2. On the Google preferences page you can set an interface language, a search language, set the level of filtering you want, bump up the number of results per page so you don't spend all your time clicking from page to page, set search results to open in a new browser window and decide whether or not to have Google supply you with suggestions for search terms. Don't forget to click the "Save Preferences" button at the top when you finish.

3. Put phrases in quotes. Suppose I wanted to search for my own name. If I type in Virginia DeBolt I get results about the state of Virginia, all sorts of people named Virginia and similar multitudes of information about the word DeBolt. But if I put the phrase in quotes like this "Virginia DeBolt" I get results showing those two words in that order. Another example, suppose you are trying to remember a song lyric or a poem, you'll find it much faster if you put the phrase you do remember in quotation marks. I get instant results from "something there is that doesn't love" in quotes, whereas an unquoted something there is that doesn't love returns thousands of not-so-helpful results.

4. Promote or Remove

   If you do a search and find something you want on Google, promote it. Beside the underlined search results, there are two small buttons: one is an arrow, which will instantly move this result to the top of your results. And the next time you look for the information, Google will show you this one first. The button with the X does the opposite; it removes that result from your search results.

5. Keep out the material you don't want. Suppose you are looking for information on Phoebe Snow, the singer. You don't want any information about the train called Phoebe Snow to appear. In your query you can type Phoebe Snow -train or Phoebe Snow NOT train. This will eliminate any results involving trains. The reverse of this is to use a plus sign (+) or the word AND. For example, you could achieve the same results if you search for Phoebe Snow +music or Phoebe Snow AND music.