Google Tabs

Many of us use Google search by typing in some word or phrase and usually find what we want on the first page and go no further. Google search has become much better at anticipating our needs, including fixing typos for us.
However, there are times we are looking for specific information and do not wish to wade through the swamp of irrelevant and overlapping pages.
My biggest problem with searching, other than relevance, is dates. Seems like nothing ever leaves the web and as information changes, the web just adds more, rather than fixes incorrect information.
My favorite tab is the Tools tab. When you click on it there are two options, Any Time and All results. Using the Any Time button there are options for various time periods, including custom. For technical information, I like to use past week or past month. For other things, past year usually weeds out most of the old garbage. All results is the default, but also offers verbatim (in case you forgot to use quote marks in your search).

On the top of every search results page there are a number of tabs. Usually you will see Web, Images, News, Videos, Shopping, More, Settings, and Tools. Using these tabs can help define what kind of search you need to do. If you need images, use the Image tab. If you are looking for a recent news article, use the News tab. If you click on More, then choose advanced search, Google offers boxes to help refine your search criteria. You can forget many of the tips I have offered by using this Advanced Search as it shows boxes to fill in and offers examples. Advanced search is particularly good for very specific searches.


Find pages with... To do this in the search box
All these words:...Type the important words:  tricolor rat terrier
This exact word or phrase:...Put exact words in quotes:  "rat terrier"
any of these words:...Type OR between all the words you want:  miniature OR standard
None of these words:...Put a minus sign just before words you don't want:  -rodent, -"Jack Russell"
Numbers ranging from:...to Put 2 periods between the numbers and add a unit of measure: 10..35 lb, $300..$500, 2010..2011.