The 10 best web search tips you didn't know

There are few things that you can't find on the Internet. However, not everyone knows how to use search engines to find them. You need to master some search skills, otherwise you may get nothing.

If a search fails to achieve the goal, it doesn’t matter. Modify the search conditions and usesearch engineThe advanced features of, tell them what you are looking for, targeted search can get good results.

The following tried-and-tested web search technologies are very mature and are the basic search skills required for successful search. After mastering it, it will feel so simple, and an infinite and alluring world will be unfolded in front of oneself.

Search for relevance

The more relevant words used in the search, the better the effect.

For example, if you want to search in MichiganCoffee shopWhen, only searchcoffeeWith this word, there are too many results, and many of them are not what you want.

However, the vocabulary of this word is restricted. For example, if the word contains coffee type, color, brand, and specific location required, it will usually get the desired result.

But search on Google roasted arabica coffee in detroit michigan,The result is different, very accurate, this is the information the searcher wants, as shown in the following figure:

Use English quotation marks to search for phrases

Another important technique to get accurate and targeted search results is to use English quotation marks to group words. This tells the search engine: All content within the quotation marks should be grouped according to the results.

For example, search on Google "Los Angeles""apartments for rent"

When using quotation marks to search the web, it will greatly reduce the number of search results, thus making the search results more focused.

For example, the following groups two sets of words so that each group of words can be searched independently:

"Los Angeles""apartments for rent"

The results displayed in this way include Los Angeles, but will not contain pages with "los" or "angeles", such as Los Pinos, Los Cocos, Angeles National Forest, etc.

The same goes for the "apartments for rent" group.

Because the target you are looking for is an apartment for rent rather than for sale, do not include information that is irrelevant to it in the search results, so use quotation marks to get better results.

Using quotation marks can reduce the number of search results and find very specific content. It should be noted that do not insert a large number of words between the quotation marks. If there are too many restrictions, there will be too few results.

Use the right search engine

Every search engine is different.

This is because search engines had different ideas and goals at the beginning of its creation, and different types of satisfaction. If "regular" users like Google, Bing, or Yahoo are not enough to find what they need, then you need to try other types of search engines.

For example, an audio search engine is used to find all kinds of audio files, no matter what type, there is no problem, such as clips, music, effects and other files can be retrieved. If such a file is searched with a video or image engine, the effect will not be very good.

people search sitesAnd image search engines, invisible web search engines, job search engines, torrent search engines, etc. can also be used, and niche search engines may also be helpful.

Use Google to search within a specific site

If you want to search on a particular website, but you can't find the ideal results using the built-in search tool of the site, then the best search tool at this time is Google.

Enter this type of search command in Google: site:###.com

l For example, if you want to find all pages on this site that include the keyword "finding someone", the search example is as follows:

site:findpersonfree.com Find someone

Or search on a specific type of domain name website. For example, if you want to search for the person "John Smith" in all .gov websites, the search command is as follows:

site:gov "John Smith"

Use plus and minus signs to narrow search results/scope

Search example: "tom ford"-motors

Another simpler web search technique is to use addition and subtraction to make search results more relevant to the query. This search method is called Boolean search, and it is one of the guiding principles for most search engines to construct their search results. 

Suppose you want to search for Tom Ford, but Ford Motors has a lot of search results, but, combined with the minus sign/hyphen, you can easily solve this problem:

"tom ford" -motors-"tom ford"-motors

In the search results, if you find other words or phrases that you don’t want to see, you can add them to the search at any time for continuous improvement.

Visit offline web page

A malfunctioning website or a page that has been permanently offline is not necessarily inaccessible. Sometimes it is possible to access the cached version of the page or browse the archived copy of the page.

Not all pages are cached, but Google provides an easy way to check. If the site cannot be opened for any reason (for example, the site has been closed or cannot be loaded properly due to traffic overload), you can use this technique to search.

However, the caching option on Google does not apply to truly old pages. If a website no longer exists, another way to search is to useWayback Machine.

Advanced tools for using search engines

Use the advanced options of the search engine to get better search results. Take Yahoo search as an example below.

When searching for images in Yahoo, you can select the image color, size, and type. Video search is similar, but you can also add search criteria for video length and resolution to make the results more accurate.

Another advanced search function of Google is to find files, which is suitable for PDF, Word documents and other file types.

The same is true for other search engine sites. Similar toFilter, Advanced,Tools, More OptionsSome advanced function buttons/menus.

Run wildcard search

The wildcard can be an asterisk (*), pound sign (#) or question mark (?), but the asterisk is the most common.

For example, if you want to search for truck rental in California, but you are not sure where the rental company is in the state, you can search like this:

"best truck rental in * california"-"best truck rental in * california"

Through the above search, you can find the best truck rental list and quotation in almost all places in California.

The following is also an example of a similar search:

"best * rental" "san jose"-"best * rental" "san jose"

Search for specific words

Sometimes, although you find a relevant webpage, it is difficult to locate the relevant content because there are too many content on this webpage. In this case, try the keyword search box of the web browser, similar to the internal search of the site mentioned above, not only You can find pages that contain these words, and you can also display the exact location of the keywords on the page.

Method of operation:,useCtrl + F(Windows) orCommand + F(Mac) keyboard shortcuts. Most mobile browsers also support the search function, which is usually hidden in the menu.

For example, if you want to find a web page related to the researcher, and want to quickly check whether the content of 2005 is mentioned in the web page, you can use the shortcut to enter2005. This will highlight each instance on the page and you can quickly jump to each line.

Combine search using multiple search engines

Don't just use one search engine to search.Google is not the only search engine, You can also use other search engines, sometimes you can have unexpected search results.

Bing,Yahoo,Startpage.com,Yandex,Ask.comwithDuckDuckGoJust a few examples.

Because each search engine has its own unique algorithm and advanced options, it can eventually display different results from other search engines.

Another example,Dogpile, It combines several search engines into one, using it to search can get good results without jumping to other sites.