• The search techniques shown here are based on Google; other Web search engines use similar but not necessarily identical techniques. For additional information consult:

Milstein, S., Biersdorfer, J.D., & MacDonald, M. (2006). Google: The Missing Manual (2nd ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.

Google Help Center, Basics of Search:
www.google.com/help/basics.html

Google Help Center, Advanced Search:
www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html

An online tutorial on finding information on the Internet (UC, Berkeley:
www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/About.html

• AND is implied between the words you enter (keywords, search terms) and Google will list search results first with matches to all your words, followed by matches to some of your words. It will also look for variants. For example, if you enter the word flying Google would also show matches with the words fly and flies.

• If you want something other than a simple AND search, there are some good options: (these will be explained below)

• Use quotation marks
• Use OR
• Use +
• Use -
• Use Wildcards (*)

• Quotation marks: If you want your words searched as a complete phrase, exactly as you entered them, in the order you entered them, and without variants, then use quotation marks. For example, if you enter “kite flying”, each result will have an exact match with “kite flying”.

• OR If you want to find Web pages that have one term or another, use “OR” in capital letters, e.g., “George Washington” OR “John Adams” OR “Thomas Jefferson”. Notice that the use of quotation marks will eliminate matches with John Quincy Adams or with Washington.

• + If you want to ensure that a certain common word is included in every result, precede it with a "+" sign. For example:
• +The Omen (for the film “The Omen”
• Star Wars Episode +1 (for the first episode)

• - If you want to ensure exclusion of a certain word in every result, precede it with a “-” sign. For example:
            • “Ben Afleck” - “Jennifer Lopez”
            • bass -music
            • Java -coffee

• Wildcards: Google offers the use of full-word wildcards in searches. This also helps if you are unsure of a word or unsure of its spelling. Examples:
            • george * * bush
            • Haley’s comet appears every * years
            • Leonard Bernstein and Stephen *
            • Oscar the Grouch lives in *

• Google searches are not case-sensitive

• Singular words will be treated differently from plural words. If unsure, try one and then the other.

• The order of words is important. Google treats the first word as most important, etc.

• Google ignores most “little words”, e.g., the, an, I, for, from, in, it, of. If you want any such word to be taken into consideration, use quotation marks.

• Google ignores most punctuation. Punctuation that is not ignored:

• Apostrophes
• Hyphens
• Quote marks
• Accent marks (in Roman-alphabet foreign languages)

• Synonym searches

• To search not only for your search terms but also for its synonyms, precede your search term with a tilde sign (~)
• For example, entering ~food ~facts will include searches for “nutrition information”, “nutrition tips”, etc.