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Power Searching With Google: How To Find Almost Anything On The Web

This document discusses various search term modifiers and switches that can be used with Google to refine search results. It provides examples of modifiers like +, -, and " to require, exclude, or specify phrases. It also describes Google-specific switches like site:, filetype:, inurl:, intitle:, and intext: to limit results by site, file type, words in the URL, title, or page text. These modifiers and switches can be combined to perform very targeted searches, for example to find PDF files on a specific site containing certain words in the title.

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132 views

Power Searching With Google: How To Find Almost Anything On The Web

This document discusses various search term modifiers and switches that can be used with Google to refine search results. It provides examples of modifiers like +, -, and " to require, exclude, or specify phrases. It also describes Google-specific switches like site:, filetype:, inurl:, intitle:, and intext: to limit results by site, file type, words in the URL, title, or page text. These modifiers and switches can be combined to perform very targeted searches, for example to find PDF files on a specific site containing certain words in the title.

Uploaded by

hallow
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Power searching with Google

How to find almost anything on the


Web

Search Term Modifers


+

strengthens the requirement that the word


appear in the search results
removes all instances of the word from the
search results
allows specifying multi-term strings
OR allows finding pages which contain one of
two words
~ allows searching for a term and its
synonyms

Google-specific options
Advanced

search has all of the


shortcuts that well be covering today.
Image search allows a very specific
type of search. Returns thumbnails so
that you can see what youre getting.

Title

Text

URL

Google Switches
site:

limits search to one site. Can be


used if a site doesnt have a built-in
search engine.
example:
+Sorghum rust site:okstate.edu
will return all pages containing Sorghum
rust from okstate.edu

Google Switches
Link:URL

searches for pages that link to


the specified URL.
example:
link:countyext.okstate.edu returns all
pages that link to countyext.okstate.edu

Google Switches
filetype: limits

search to one type of file


- .doc, .pdf, .jpg and so on.
example:
+Sorghum rust filetype:pdf
will return all pages containing Sorghum
rust that are PDF files.

Google Switches
inurl:

limits results to pages that


contain the string in their URLs (or
website addresses).
example:
inurl:Sorghum
will return all pages containing Sorghum
in the URL; for example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sorghum.html

Google Switches
intitle:

limits results to pages that


contain the string in the page title.
example:
intitle:Sorghum
will return all pages containing Sorghum
in the title, but not those that only have
sorghum in the text or URL.

Google Switches
intext:

limits results to pages that


contain the string in the page itself.
example:
intext:Sorghum
will return all pages containing Sorghum
in the text, but not those that only have
sorghum in the title or URL.

Google Switches
inanchor:

limits results to pages that


contain the string in links on the page.
example:
inanchor:boer goats
will return all pages that have links
containing the phrase boer goats

Google Switches
If

you are using multiple search terms,


you can prefix all of the in- switches
with all; for example, allintext:rust
sorghum wheat will return all pages with
those three terms appearing in the text
of the page.

Google Switches
All

of these switches can be combined; it


is possible to build searches like this:
inurl:sorghum site:tamu.edu filetype:pdf
This returns all pages from tamu.edu that
both have sorghum in the URL and are
PDFs.

Google Switches
You

can also build searches using the


minus sign with a switch; for example:
+sorghum site:tamu.edu filetype:pdf
will return all pages containing sorghum
from tamu.edu that are not PDF files. Or,
you could exclude tamu.edu:
+sorghum site:tamu.edu

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