Things You'll Need:
- Internet Access
- Web Browsers
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Step 1
Add a minus sign (-) before the first letter of a keyword to exclude it from a Web search. Be certain there is no space between the (-) and the word. (For example, typing "chocolate -milk" will exclude pages that mention milk chocolate.)
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Step 2
Use the plus sign (+) to require a keyword. When you use several keywords in your search, most search engines look for pages containing at least one of these keywords. If you want to be certain that a keyword will appear on every results page, use the plus sign.
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Step 3
Use quotation marks for multiword phrases. Most search engines usually search for your keywords anywhere within Web pages. When you use quotation marks (" ") around several keywords, the search engine will retrieve only those pages where your keywords appear next to each other in the order typed. You can use the double quotes when searching for a phrase or for a person.
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Step 4
Use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard. Place an asterisk at the end of a word, and it is used like the MS-DOS "wildcard," replacing up to 5 characters. (So "Smith*" returns Smith, Smithers, Smithy, and so on.)
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Step 5
Use more keywords. Because most search engines index several million Web pages, typing one keyword usually returns too many results to be useful.
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Step 6
Avoid generic keywords. Words such as car, sports and city are very generic. You are more likely to find what you are looking for if you type more specific words such as convertible, basketball or Phoenix.
