More Google Tips

A search for “What is the Who” is going to get results about the English rock band. Search instead for “What is a Who” and you see top results around the whimsical characters in Dr. Seuss’ “Horton Hears a Who!”


Word order matters. Leave common terms in the correct order. Typing “blue sky” yields very different results from “sky blue.” it is better to ask, “What is the average length of an octopus” rather than “Is the average length of an octopus 21 inches?" and you may see search results "confirming" 21 inches? Maybe other sources also got it wrong. When you include the answer in a search query, you bias results, which may not be correct.

Add a minus sign to that same search along with the thing you want to eliminate from your results. So you might type “kitchen remodeling -stainless” to leave out stainless steel. Or “kitchen remodeling -stainless -granite” to knock out both stainless and granite images. The spacing between the thing you are searching for and the thing you are excluding is important – the search will not exclude the words without a space before the minus.

Google does not recognize uppercase or lowercase letters and punctuation. But pay attention to characters such as “$”,” %” and “+” which do make a big difference.

You are searching for a specific quote, but one of the words slips your mind. Put an asterisk in its place. "Four score and * years ago."