Tips for Google Search
By Abhay Shukla
Google
Searching a “Specific Phrase”
Ex: If I want to search for the specific line say: Relationship
between Caliper and Delamination, then I’ll put the line in
quotation marks “ ”. So the search will look like:
Notice the “ ” marks around the search text.
This is how the result looks like:
Note: I don’t find this method
too useful in general search.
Nevertheless I always try it.
Searching a filetype:PDF, PPT, DOC etc.
Using the same line I will add a term filetype:pdf with the
search. Ex:
This Is How You Search For A
Particular File Type. Two Most
Important Filetype Are PDF And PPT
Notice that when I do this search I always remove the
quotation marks in the search term unless I am really looking
for a specific file name.
This is how the result looks like:
Notice that only PDF files are
searched in all top results.
PDF
Searching a filetype:PDF, PPT, DOC etc
Like PDF you can also search for other file formats like
XLSX, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX etc. Here is another
example for searching PPT files
Here is the result of PPT search:
Notice that PPT files are being
searched in all top results.
PPT
Another Presentation format
is PPTX which can be searched
similarly.
Searching in site:edu and other
Domains
All top universities have .edu domains. Many research
material and lectures are available in these sites. Here is how
you search in these domains.
Here is what the result looks like:
Notice the top results
include results from
sites of type:
[Link]
site:edu
Google Scholar
[Link] is a very useful site to find free and
open-to-access research material.
On the next slide notice on the left side of page that patents
are also searched along with other content.
Google Scholar
Scholar
Excluding Words from Search
Words can be excluded from search using a minus (–) sign
with the words to be excluded. Its like math!
For example searching for bottom layer peel-off of
paperboard results shows second result related to
Cardboard.
If we want to eliminate the results related to cardboard, we
simply put it with minus sign as
bottom layer peel-off of paperboard –cardboard
If you check the results again all cardboard results are
eliminated from top results.
The example is shown in subsequent slides.
–search
Searching Related Content
related: is used when you want to search for content related
to a specific site.
In the next slide it is shown for [Link] example. Check the
results that we get are all related to the kind of content
present in TAPPI website. All results relate to paper and
paperboard sites.
This is a helpful tool to search for websites with domain
specific content.
related:
Searching for Definitions
define: is like an online dictionary. It gives links to websites
where the search term has been defined. It is useful when
you are searching for some new thing.
It also shows the first result as definition of the term.
An example is shown in the next slide.
define:
[Link]/patents
[Link]/patents to search for patents. The page
looks similar to Google home page.
Google patents are free to download in PDF format. The
DOWNLOAD PDF link in patents is present on top-right
corner in the patent page.
patents
Country Specific Search
Many times the result for the same search terms are
completely different when you search in say, [Link],
[Link] and [Link]
If you are searching something related to a specific country it
is a good idea to try google search for that specific country.
Some country specific sites are:
Australia: [Link]
UK: [Link]
country
[Link]
Same methods of searching generally also apply to Microsoft
search engine called Bing.
In some cases, Bing is worth a try when we are not able to
find desired results in Google. However, in most cases the
results will not be much different.
Also [Link] and [Link] both search engines give the
same results.
bing
How to Search?
This is generally the method I follow:
1. Start searching normally.
2. You may have to change the search phrase/words depending on the
results you get above because in some cases the results may be
completely irrelevant.
3. Use filetype:pdf, filetype:ppt or filetype:pptx, site:edu to check for
results.
4. If you check the results obtained above, you get some hint on the
exact thing (or something closer) to what you want. Accordingly
modify the search words/phrases.
5. Keep searching!
In some cases it takes a while and different combinations of the tools
discussed in this PPT to find the desired result. So the most important
part is, Be Patient.
The journey may be long. Be Patient and keep moving!
What are you Searching?!
In case of trouble you can always google a little
more!
