Basic Search
Using "search hacks" will make your time online more productive and yield better results. Give these tricks a try as you complete our Internet Scavenger Hunt.
Using "search hacks" will make your time online more productive and yield better results. Give these tricks a try as you complete our Internet Scavenger Hunt.
How: Use quotation marks around a "phrase" to search for the exact phrase
Example: And then they watched the sky burn (no quotes) retrieves in a Billie Eilish song
When you add the quotes to "And then they watched the sky burn" the results are about a Vietnam Veteran's search for a Corpsman
How: Use a hyphen or minus sign - to exclude or omit terms you don't want returned in your results
Example: Mustang -car
With the exclude phrase you will receive results about mustangs that are not cars
Example: salsa recipe -tomato
With the exclude phrase you will receive recipes for salsa that do not include tomatoes
Example Double Exclude: brownie recipe -egg -cocoa -chocolate
With the exclude phrase you will receive recipes for brownies that do not include eggs, cocoa or chocolate
How: Use a plus sign - to include terms you must have returned in your results
Example: +pickle +purple
With the include phrase you will receive results about purple pickles
How: If you're looking for results that are about one topic or another, but nothing else, use the OR modifier to get more accurate results.
Example: dog OR cat
With the OR phrase you will receive pages that have either the word dog OR cat
How: If you're looking for results that are about one topic or another, but nothing else, use the OR modifier to get more accurate results.
Example: dog AND cat
With the AND phrase you will receive pages that have either the word dog AND cat
How:When you use an asterisk in a search term on Google search, it will leave a placeholder that may be automatically filled by the search engine later.
Example: a * by any other *
With the * wildcard command you will find the "a rose by any other name" phrase is from Romeo and Juliet
How: Add the term define: to receive a definition of a word
Example: define:staycation
With the define: command you will receive a dictionary definition of the word staycation
How: Add the term filetype: to return a search results list with only a specified extension. For example maybe you need a PowerPoint with information about Park City, Utah
Example: +"park city" +utah filetype:ppt
With the filetype: command you will receive several presentations to review.