Super GOOGLE: Top 12 Advanced Search Techniques

Summary

This video script offers a comprehensive guide on enhancing Google search efficiency with 12 advanced techniques. It covers precise searching through quoted phrases, excluding terms with the minus operator, and site-specific searches. The script also introduces Boolean operators for complex queries, searching from the URL bar, domain-specific searches, file type filters, and using wildcards for flexible term matching. The goal is to find the right information the first time, not just more information.

Takeaways

• 🔍 **Exact Match Searches**: Use quotation marks to find pages with the exact phrase or name specified, ensuring precision in search results.
• ❌ **Exclusion with Minus Operator**: Utilize the minus sign to exclude specific words or phrases from search results, refining the information to avoid irrelevant content.
• 🏢 **Site-Specific Searches**: Employ 'site:' followed by a domain to perform searches within a specific website, leveraging Google's search capabilities for better results than the site's native search.
• ➕ **Inclusion with Plus Operator**: Prefix terms with a plus sign to ensure they appear in search results, guaranteeing the presence of specific words or phrases.
• 📈 **OR Operator for Expansion**: Use the OR operator to broaden the search scope by including pages that contain at least one of multiple terms.
• 📝 **AND Operator for Selectivity**: Combine the AND operator with other search terms to narrow down results to pages that contain all specified terms.
• 🔑 **Parentheses for Complex Queries**: Use parentheses to group terms and create more complex, precise search queries, particularly useful for combining multiple search operators.
• 🌐 **Search from URL Bar**: Perform Google searches directly from the URL bar of your browser, even without visiting Google's homepage.
• 🔗 **Domain-Specific Shortcuts**: Type a domain name like 'Amazon' or 'YouTube' into the URL bar to switch the search context to that specific domain, simplifying the search process.
• 📄 **File Type Searches**: Use the 'filetype:' operator to find documents in specific formats, such as PDFs or Excel spreadsheets, tailored to the user's needs.
• 🎯 **Title-Specific Searches**: Use 'intitle:' to search for terms that appear specifically in the title of documents or web pages, enhancing the relevance of search results.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of the video script?

The main purpose of the video script is to teach viewers the top 12 ways to make their Google searches faster and more effective, covering various search techniques and operators.

What is the significance of using quotation marks in Google searches?

Using quotation marks in Google searches ensures that the search engine looks for the exact phrase specified, in that exact order, rather than just pages that contain the words in any order or as a subset.

How does the minus operator help in refining Google search results?

The minus operator allows users to exclude pages that contain a specific word or phrase from their search results, helping to narrow down the results to more relevant pages.

What is a site search and how can it be used?

A site search is a technique where you specify a domain name along with your search query to restrict the search to that particular website. It's useful for when a website's own search function is not effective or when you want to use Google's advanced search features on a specific site.

Can you explain the use of the plus operator in Google searches?

The plus operator ensures that a specific search term must appear in the search results. It is used to make absolutely sure that the pages in the results contain the term prefixed by the plus sign.

What does the 'or' operator do in a Google search?

The 'or' operator is used to find pages that contain at least one of the two terms specified. It broadens the search scope by including results that match either term.

How can parentheses be used to enhance the precision of a Google search?

Parentheses can be used to group terms and create complex search queries, allowing for more specific combinations of terms and the use of Boolean operators within the grouped terms.

What is the benefit of searching from the URL bar instead of going to Google's homepage?

Searching from the URL bar allows for quicker access to Google's search results without having to navigate to the Google homepage, and it supports the use of all the advanced search techniques discussed in the script.

What is domain searching and how can it simplify the search process?

Domain searching is a shortcut that allows users to search within a specific website directly from the URL bar by typing the domain name, which then changes the search context to that website only.

How can the 'in url' operator be used to find specific pages based on their URL content?

The 'in url' operator can be used to search for pages that contain specific text within their URL. This is particularly useful when you know a product ID or a specific identifier that you want to find on a website.

What is the purpose of the 'file type' operator in Google searches?

The 'file type' operator allows users to search for documents or data in a specific format, such as PDF or Excel, by specifying the file type followed by the colon and the desired file extension.

How can the 'in title' operator be used to find documents with specific terms in their title?

The 'in title' operator can be used to search for documents where the specified term appears in the title of the document. It helps to find relevant documents more quickly by focusing on the document title.

What is the wildcard operator and how can it be used in Google searches?

The wildcard operator, represented by an asterisk, matches any word or phrase in a search query. It can be used within more complex expressions to find variations of a term or to fill in unknown parts of a phrase.

Outlines

00:00

🔎 Advanced Google Search Techniques

This paragraph introduces a comprehensive guide to enhancing Google search efficiency. It covers 12 advanced search methods, such as quoted searches for exact phrases, the minus operator to exclude terms, and site-specific searches. The focus is on precision and selectivity in search results, ensuring users find the most relevant information the first time.

05:00

📉 Utilizing Operators for Specific Searches

The second paragraph delves into the use of search operators like the plus sign for mandatory inclusion, the or operator for broadening search scope, and parentheses for complex queries. It discusses how these operators can be combined to perform precise searches, including site-specific searches with operators and searching from the URL bar using Google's default search engine.

10:03

🔍 Specialized Search Features and Shortcuts

This paragraph highlights specialized search features, including domain searching for specific sites like Amazon and YouTube directly from the URL bar, URL searches for finding pages with particular IDs or UPCs, and file type searches to locate documents in formats like PDF or Excel. It also touches on text and title searches to find terms specifically in document titles and the use of wildcards for matching unknown or variable terms within searches.

15:03

🌐 Conclusion and Call to Action

The final paragraph serves as a conclusion to the video script, encouraging viewers to subscribe and like for more content. It reiterates the importance of the search techniques shared and hints at future topics that may be explored in 'Dave's Garage'. The paragraph also subtly promotes a book related to autism and Asperger's syndrome, positioning it as a valuable resource for those interested in the subject.

Keywords

💡Google

Google is a search engine that is widely used for finding information on the internet. In the context of the video, it is the primary tool discussed for enhancing search efficiency. The script mentions various techniques to make Google searches more effective, emphasizing Google's ability to refine search results beyond the basic level.

💡Search Techniques

Search techniques refer to the methods used to improve the efficiency and accuracy of search results. The video's theme revolves around these techniques, teaching viewers how to use specific search operators and strategies to find the most relevant information quickly. Examples from the script include using quotation marks for exact phrases and the minus operator to exclude specific terms.

💡Quotation Marks

In the context of search, quotation marks are used to search for an exact phrase or set of words in the specified order. The script illustrates this with examples like searching for 'John Quincy Adams' to get results that include the full name rather than pages about John Adams or Adams alone.

💡Minus Operator

The minus operator is a search command used to exclude specific words or phrases from the search results. The script explains how to use this operator to refine searches, such as finding recipes for chocolate chip cookies without any mention of peanuts by using 'peanut butter cookies -peanut'.

💡Site Search

Site search is a technique that allows users to search within a specific website using Google. The script demonstrates how to use this by adding 'site:' followed by the domain name to the search query, which is particularly useful for websites with poor internal search functions, like GitHub or Amazon.

💡Plus Operator

The plus operator is used in search queries to ensure that a specific term must appear in the search results. The script uses the example of searching for '+24v LED strip' on Amazon to guarantee that every result includes the term '24v'.

💡OR Operator

The OR operator is used to broaden a search to include pages that contain at least one of two or more terms. The script gives an example of searching for 'Saskatchewan Milford OR Humboldt' to find pages that mention either of the two towns in Saskatchewan.

💡AND Operator

The AND operator is used to narrow down search results to only include pages that contain all the specified terms. While the script does not provide a direct example, it suggests that the AND operator can be used in combination with other operators for precise searches.

💡Parentheses

Parentheses are used in search queries to group terms and create more complex search expressions. The script explains how to use them to search for 'vanilla cake OR chocolate cake' by writing the query as '(vanilla OR chocolate) AND cake'.

💡URL Bar

The URL bar refers to the address bar in a web browser, which can also be used to perform searches if Google is set as the default search engine. The script mentions that all the search techniques discussed can be entered directly into the URL bar for quick searches.

💡File Type Operator

The file type operator allows users to search for documents in a specific format, such as PDF or Excel. The script provides an example of searching for a '1999 secret budget' in PDF format by using 'filetype:PDF 1999 secret budget'.

💡In Title Operator

The 'in title' operator is used to search for terms that appear in the title of a document or webpage. The script suggests using this operator to find PDF documents with 'Saskatchewan' in the title, as in 'intitle:Saskatchewan filetype:PDF'.

💡Wildcard Operator

The wildcard operator, represented by an asterisk (*), can be used to match any word or phrase in a search query. The script illustrates its use with an example like 'the quick brown * jumps OR jumped over the * dog' to find variations of a well-known phrase.

Highlights

Revolutionizing Google search with top 12 ways to make searches faster and more effective.

Using quoted searches to find exact phrases or names.

The minus operator to exclude specific words or phrases from search results.

Site search to use Google's search capabilities on specific websites.

Plus operator to ensure certain search terms appear in the results.

Using the or operator to find pages with either of two terms.

Parentheses to create complex search queries for more precise results.

Searching from the URL bar for quick and direct Google searches.

Domain searching for specific public websites directly from the URL bar.

Searching by file type to find documents in specific formats like PDF or Excel.

Text and title searches to find terms that appear only in the title of documents.

Wildcard operator to match any word or phrase within search expressions.

Practical applications of these search techniques for more effective information retrieval.

Improving search precision by combining multiple search operators and techniques.

How to find the right information the first time using advanced Google search methods.

Examples of using site-specific searches for platforms like GitHub, Wikipedia, Reddit, and Amazon.

The importance of using exact phrases and how to ensure they appear in search results.

Tips for refining searches to match specific criteria and exclude irrelevant results.

Transcripts

if you use Google today is your lucky

day because I'm about to revolutionize

how you search for things by showing you

the top 12 ways that you can make your

Google searching faster and far more

effective and I'm not talking about just

using that advanced tab I mean truly

powerful searches we'll cover search

tags file types domain searches Boolean

operators and a great deal more once you

know them I'm sure you'll agree that

some of these tips are so effective that

you'll wonder how you ever found

anything without them I'll run down the

full top 12 list right here today in

Dave's Garage

foreign

[Music]

welcome to my shop as we look at the top

12 ways to make your searching more

effective you might begin to wonder how

you can improve on the already excellent

results that Google gives you today

well the answer can be found in the fact

that most of what we do here today is

not to find more results because Google

already has that part down pat and if

you're looking for the most popular

result associated with a common phrase

like chocolate chip cookies they have

you covered there as well what we'll be

primarily doing today is exploring how

to make your searches far more precise

and selective it's not about finding

more information it's about finding the

right information the first time

number 12 quoted searches

quoted searches are the very first

technique you should Master when you put

a set of words in quotation marks like

John Quincy Adams you get only results

that contain that exact name or phrase

you would not see any hits for just John

Adams if on the other hand you didn't

quote it Google is likely smart enough

to find you the top results but they

could still include any pages that

mention John Adams without regard to

which one you were talking about

other examples might include Martin

Luther versus Martin Luther King and

George W bush versus George H.W bush by

using quotation marks you ensure that

the results you get back include the

exact phrase that you specify

the quoted searches are especially

powerful when searching for direct

quotes or passages of text because it

will match only that exact set of words

in that order whereas unquoted search

can return any page that includes the

words in any order or even just a subset

of them sometimes with quotation marks

It's All or Nothing

number 11 the minus operator

using the minus operator allows you to

specify that you only want pages that do

not contain the word or phrase that you

indicate for example if you want recipes

for chocolate chip cookies that make no

mention of peanuts or peanut butter you

could search for peanut butter cookies

and then add minus peanut the results

you get to exclude anything that

mentions peanuts you can also exclude

whole phrases for example if you weren't

worried about peanuts themselves but you

still wanted to exclude any pages that

made reference to peanut butter you

could search for peanut butter cookies

minus and in quotes peanut butter where

peanut butter is as I said quoted and

preceded by the minus sign that will

still allow pages that include the word

peanut by itself but exclude any that

make mention of peanut butter

number 10 site search

have you ever been using a website that

had its own search box for finding stuff

on that site but where their search was

terrible and you knew for sure that if

you could just use Google search on that

site instead it would likely find what

you needed quickly well the good news is

that you can do just that then it's

super easy you simply specify Scythe

colon and the domain name you want to

search followed by whatever it is that

you're actually looking for

let's say I want to find a user profile

on GitHub rather than going to GitHub

and navigating around to it I can simply

enter a search that restricts the

results to pages on GitHub followed by

the profile name and so if I enter site

colon github.com space Dave PL the first

hit will be my profile page on GitHub

this technique is especially useful even

when the basic search works on a website

because it allows you to employ most

everything we learn here today on any

specific website for example you can

combine the site tag with any powerful

Google search and the net results that

you can use everything in Google's

expressive search grammar to narrowly

search any particular website

why would you do such a thing well here

are just a few examples Wikipedia has

thousands if not millions of Articles

and you can rest assured they've all

been indexed by Google so if you're

doing research or anything that requires

more than just basic keyword searches do

it with Google instead

Reddit has a notoriously poor search and

I think you'll be way ahead of the game

if you use Google to search Reddit

instead just put site colon reddit.com

in front of whatever it is that you want

to find on their site

Amazon has a bajillion products but many

of the search results are sponsored and

the content match system has a habit of

giving you a cornucopia of results that

almost match what you're looking for but

not quite let's say you're looking for

24 volt individually addressable LED

strips if we enter that search into

Amazon itself the first four results are

sponsored results that include a mix of

12 and 5 volt strips but no 24 volt

strips at all the fifth strip shown is

24 volts thankfully but the very next

one is 5 volts again so as much as I

love Amazon their search seems a little

too eager to get you to buy something

anything rather than nothing and I've

made the mistake once or twice of just

assuming that the top search results

would match the criteria that I

specified when I didn't If instead I

searched using site colon amazon.com 24v

individually addressable LED strip the

results are now actually 24 volts in

most of the cases but what if I want to

make absolutely sure that the page is

referenced 24 volts like a specified 24v

LED strip in quotes but that's a little

too specific many pages related to 24

volt LED strips may not have that exact

phrase so how do we do it we do it with

a plus operator our next tip number nine

the plus operator

when you want to make absolutely

positively sure that a search term

appears on the pages that form your

results all you need to do is to prefix

that term with a plus sign thus in our

LED example we would search Amazon as

follows scythecool and amazon.com plus

24v LED strip

when we run that query sure enough every

single result includes 24v now it's also

possible that one of the results is a

page that includes the phrase does not

support 24v but that's sort of an edge

case and you still need to vet any

results to confirm that they do indeed

match your criteria let's say that you

want to search Wikipedia for articles

about Egypt but only ancient Egypt you

can simply search for sitecool on

wikipedia.org plus ancient plus Egypt

that means the results must come from

the Wikipedia site and they must contain

the words ancient and Egypt but not in

any particular order or relative

proximity if that's actually what you

wanted to do find pages that must

contain the phrase ancient Egypt you

could quote it and put a plus operator

in front of the phrase and that would

ensure that you only get pages from

Wikipedia that have the exact phrase

ancient Egypt

number eight the or operator

what if we wanted to find pages about

either of Two Towns let's say we want

information on both Humboldt and Milford

Saskatchewan

which is to say we want to find pages

that include the word Saskatchewan at

least one of either Humboldt or Melford

we write the simple search as

Saskatchewan Melford or Humboldt with

the only caveat being that you have to

use upper case on the ore operator if

you prefer you can also use the vertical

pipe operator instead the or operator

can be especially helpful in cases where

you want to expand rather than restrict

the scope of a search for example you

might use the or operator to search for

information when you're not quite sure

which words best describe it

there are also cases where two or more

words relate to the same thing but

perhaps one is plural and so you could

write Buffalo or bison to search for

pages that include either word form

there are cases such as bicycle or bike

where the words are different enough

that you'll want to include both

as another example perhaps you're

researching cell phone plans well you'll

be further ahead if you search for

smartphone or cell phone or mobile phone

as will have a much broader reach

one of the more powerful techniques is

to First broaden a search and then

narrow it down by combining terms let's

say we want to search for vanilla or

chocolate cake the problem here is that

it won't do what we want instead

returning pages that contain the word

vanilla anywhere or chocolate cake

anywhere but not vanilla cake to do that

we need another feature bonus the and

operator

when you want to be very selective about

the pages that are returned you can use

the and operator to ensure that both

sides of the term are included you could

for example search for minus

Saskatchewan and and then in parentheses

Humboldt or Melford which would return

pages that do not include Saskatchewan

but that do include at least one of

Humboldt or Milford

it seems to me that anything you can do

with the and operator can likely be done

with the parentheses and the plus

operator if you could think of something

that can only be done with the and

operator let me know in the comments

until then though we'll just consider

the and operator to be a bonus tip

number seven parentheses

in parentheses in our searches allows us

to be very specific about our intent in

our vanilla or chocolate cake example

what we really wanted to search for was

pages that contained vanilla cake or

chocolate cake you could write that out

fully like that but there's a more

elegant way we use parentheses to

rewrite the search as in parentheses

vanilla or chocolate and then K the use

of parentheses also enables much more

complex scenarios let's say I'm looking

for William H Gates on the internet I

might write that as in quotes in

parentheses Bill or William and

parentheses Gates and quotes minus

senior easier to look on the screen if

you're not on a podcast in this case I'm

looking for pages that contain the exact

phrase Bill Gates or William Gates and

those pages should not contain senior

because that would be his dad and not

him as you can see it appears in

parentheses and the Boolean operators

function well within a quoted phrase and

that's a mechanism that can be used to

perform searches with great precision

another example consider searching for

in parentheses gray or red and then in

parentheses well for Fox which will

return any of the four combinations gray

wolf red wolf gray fox and red fox

number six searching from the URL bar

odds are you already know that as long

as Google is configured as your default

search engine you can enter searches

right into the URL bar without going to

google.com first if not that's the

biggest news of the day but as the most

basic example if I type banana into the

URL bar and press enter it does not go

to banana.com but rather it searches for

the term banana using Google if you did

want to go to banana.com hold down

control and hit enter and it just

asda.com for you

don't thank me send money what you may

not be aware of is that everything we've

learned here so far can also be entered

directly into the URL bar if you enter

apple or orange in parentheses followed

by juice you'll immediately get back

pages that include apple juice or orange

juice you can also use quotation marks

to firm up those requests the one thing

that sometimes gets in my way however is

actually a feature and not a bug it's

called domain searching and we'll check

it out next

number five domain searching

for a number of well-known public

websites like Amazon and YouTube you can

run a search right from the URL bar just

by typing the property name into the

address bar as an example watch what

happens when I simply type Amazon into

the URL bar the input box suddenly

changes slightly to reflect that my

search will only be run on Amazon you

could accomplish the same thing with the

site tag that we learned earlier but

this is a simple shortcut for people

that don't know that grammar

if you're looking for the year's best

fail videos on YouTube you'd start up by

entering the word YouTube which switches

the search context from the entire web

to just YouTube itself and then whatever

you happen to enter next is executed as

your actual search query but again only

on YouTube

number four URL searches

they're going to be times where you know

that something is relevant or important

and it appears within the actual URL

let's say you know the ID or UPC of a

product that you're searching for we can

search for just pages on Amazon that

contain that ID by using the in url

operator as an example let's search for

pages that occur on Amazon and that

include the ID of my book for people who

believe they might be on the Spectrum

our search query would look like this

site colon amazon.com in url and in the

ID of the book as you can plainly see we

first require that anything we find must

be located on the amazon.com website and

that the URL to it must also include the

ID tag of the book and sure enough when

we execute this query we get a set of

pages immediately backing with the book

and it's pretty restrictive it's a super

specific way to compose a query where

you know exactly what you're looking for

but you have no idea where it will live

on the site number three searching by

file type

what if you wish to find data in a

particular format like a PDF document or

an Excel spreadsheet fortunately this is

easy with the file type operator let's

say you're searching for a secret budget

from 1999 but that you're only

interested if it comes in a PDF file you

would compose your query like this file

type colon PDF 1999 secret budget the

first result we get back is a PDF file

of the US Secret Service budget but

that's not the type of secret that I

meant so let's try making it more

precise We'll add minus and then the

phrase Secret Service by excluding the

erroneous Secret Service documents our

top results now pertain to secret or

black military budgets which is what we

were looking for in the first place

number two text and title searches

with most searches you don't care where

your search term appears on the page but

sometimes it does matter for example you

might want to specify that you're

searching only the title of the document

which you can achieve with the in title

tag which of course can also be combined

with other tags we've already learned

so for example if we want PDF documents

with Saskatchewan in the title we would

do it as follows in title colon

Saskatchewan file type colon PDF

sure enough every search result is now a

downloadable PDF document with

Saskatchewan in the title number one

wild cards

perhaps the most underutilized search

operator is the Wild Card operator

represented by the asterisk it matches

anything and everything which doesn't

sound that useful at first Until you

realize that you can use it inside more

complicated Expressions this query means

we must have the quick brown anything

and then either the word jumps or jumped

and then over the anything dog thus it

would match the quick brown fox jumped

over the lazy dog but it would also

match the quick brown Sea Monkey Jumped

over the scurvy dog one important caveat

is that the wildcard operator can take

the place of any search term and can be

used to match whole words or phrases

even within quotation marks but it can't

appear within a single word or term it

does appear to work in some cases at the

end of a term so if you're searching for

cities that contain Sask but that do not

include Saskatchewan on the page you

could search as follows

Sask star minus Saskatchewan city that

will return pages that do contain words

starting with Sask but I do not mention

Saskatchewan and our first result comes

back as a page relating to Saskatoon

note with this query you'd only get

pages that mention Saskatoon but not

Saskatchewan if you have any interest in

matters related to autism Asperger's or

ASD please check out my book on Amazon

secrets of the artistic millionaire it's

got nothing to do with money and

everything to do with living a

successful life on the Spectrum it's

everything I know now that I wish I'd

known back then I'm mostly in this for

the subs and likes so please be sure to

leave me one of each before you go today

in the meantime and in between time I

hope to see you next time right here in

Dave's Garage

when you want to make absolutely

absolutely