How to Google Better

Learn tricks for using Google and learn how not to let Google trick you

Hold On: What Kind of Information are You Looking For?

Often when Googling we find ourselves just typing in our question and letting Google (and the search engine optimization engineers that work for websites) decide what resources are "best."

But what if we have an idea of where our answers might be found, and could point Google in those directions? By making the choices about where and how to search Google, you ensure that Google's algorithm makes fewer of these choices for you. 

First, remember that Google has different kinds of search tools that may provide different results: 

Google's search header with a red box around it

Are you looking for news? Images? Video? Is there a product you're looking to buy? All of these categories are featured in the header of Google's search results page.

Are you looking for scholarly or legal resources? Google partners with libraries and other institutions to search these databases using Google Scholar:

Google Scholar search results page 

Keywords and How to Find Them

Typing in a question and getting a quick answer is one of Google's most ingenious features, but to get the most out of Google (or any database), you're going to need keywords.

The basic idea behind keywords is taking a big idea, identifying the important concepts in it, and phrasing those concepts in ways that people actually use. Put another way, try to make your searches:

  • Simple - don't use ten words if you can use three

AND

  • Precise - don't say "stair walking metal thingies" if you can say "Slinkies"

Working with Search Terms

You've picked a Google search engine and come up with some keywords. What's next?

You can do more with Google than just enter a string of keywords and click search. The tabs in this box show you some tricks to make your searching more precise and robust. Don't forget that you can combine each of these techniques together, too. 

  • Including site: in a search allows you to search within a particular site.
    • If you wanted to compare news coverage of ISIS in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (both of which you can access for free through the library's website), you could search [ ISIS site:nytimes.com ] and [ ISIS site:wsj.com ].
    • You can also limit to domain types, like .gov or .edu, using this tool: for example, [ ISIS site:.gov ] would provide you with mentions of ISIS on U.S. government websites.
  • The filetype: limiter can help narrow your search by focusing on particular types of information. Looking for labor statistics in India? Those statistics might be compiled on an Excel spreadsheet, meaning you could try searching [ labor statistics India filetype:.xls ]. Think about the forms in which information is presented. 
  • Exact phrase searching: Google is getting better at interpreting your search phrases, but searching for an exact phrase can still help you get more precise results. To do an exact phrase search, put all or part of your search in quotation marks (" "); i.e., instead of [ you should read your novel ], you would search [ "you should read your novel" ] or [ "you should read" your novel ].
    • However, let's use of a more useful example. Exact phrases are great if you're searching for a precise idea that uses very common words. For example: say you're looking for the name of the  artist who made a candle that says "Times of New York." If you were to search [ times of new york ], you would end up with results for the New York Times. However, searching [ "times of new york" ] leads to the result you're looking for (which is Tobias Wong, by the way). 
  • Excluding search terms: Sometimes seemingly good searches end up providing you with a lot of irrelevant results. One way around this is by excluding search terms, by putting a [ - ] in front of a search term.
    • For example, if you search for [ jaguar ] on Google hoping to find information about the big cat, you may be disappointed when the results are for the car company. However, if you modify the search to [ jaguar -car ], you'll tell Google to exclude from the results any pages where the word "car" appears with the word "jaguar." 

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