Search engines

How to use search like a pro

1. Exact phrase

   “Search for this exact phrase”

2. Exclude terms

   “Search for this exact phrase” -without this word

3. Either OR

   alex hem OR hernandez

4. Synonym search

   Searching for “plumbing ~university” will bring up results for plumbing from colleges as well as universities, for example.

5. Search within a site

   site:theguardian.com selfie stick

6. The power of the asterisk

   where there’s a * there’s a way

   Like the blank tile in Scrabble, the asterisk works as a wild card within searches. It can be used in place of a missing word or part of a word, which is useful for completing phrases, but also when you’re trying to search for a less definite article.

   A search for architect* will search for architect, but also architectural, architecture, architected, architecting and any other word which starts with architect.

7. Searching between two values

   british prime minister 1920.. 1950

8. Search for word in the body, title or URL of a page

   intitle:review inurl:review intext:review

9. Search for related sites

   related:theguardian.com

   The related qualifier is useful for finding similar sites. Searching for related:theguardian.com for instance, will bring up the websites of other news organisations that Google deems the most similar to the Guardian.

10. Combine them

    site:theguardian.com smartphone review ~budget motorola OR something else