Google is the Internet’s very popular search engine; daily millions of user’s use it to search for important information. It is often difficult to find the one best site out of the hundreds and thousands returned in Google’s search results. Here are some tips that can help to find what you’re looking for without having to wade through less relevant results.

Fine-Tune Your Query with More Keywords

Search Google by constructing a query composed of one or more keywords. The keywords enter are compared to Google’s index of web documents; the more keywords found on a web page, the better the match. They have used as many keywords as you need – the more the better, in fact.

If, you see, one of the most common mistakes made by casual searchers is to use too some keywords. These searchers do not enter enough information to adequately describe what they are searching for.

You will get better, more targeted results by using several keywords. The more words you use, the better idea Google has of what you’re looking for. The more keywords in the query, the easier it will be for Google to find the best match for your search.

Set Time Restraints

Looking for only the latest news about a subject and trying to find information relevant to a specific time frame? Use Google’s search tools on desktop or mobile to filter your search results. When on desktop, just click tool under the magnifying glass icon. On mobile, swipe to the end of the list of Google search types and select Search tools. Select Any time to open a drop-down menu that can help you narrow results to the past hour, 24 hours, month, week, and year. Desktop users can select Custom range to enter the specific dates.

Search for Similar Words

Every time you aren’t completely sure you are thinking of the right word to describe what you’re looking for. Maybe somebody else describes this item using different words than you would; maybe there are lots of different ways to describe the item.

It helps to search not only for a single keyword, but for words that are similar to that keyword. To this end, Google search for similar words by using the operator. Just include the character before the word in question, and Google searches for all pages that include that word and all appropriate synonyms.

For instance, Google search for words that are like the word “elderly,” enter the query elderly. This finds pages that include not just the word “elderly,” but also the words “senior,” “aged,” “nursing homes,” and many more . This really expands your search results, giving you a lot more options to select them.

Exclude Irrelevant Words

Just as you sometimes want to search for pages that include a stop word that Google normally ignores, want to refine your results by excluding all pages that include a specific word. This lets you skip those pages that include a misleading and irrelevant word that might otherwise be common to your search.

This is particularly problematic when it comes to homonyms, words with several meanings. Google lets you exclude words from your search by using the – operator; any word in your query preceded by – is automatically excluded from the search results.

They can use the – operator to exclude pages that include words related to those meanings of your main keyword that are irrelevant to your search. In the case of the word “bass,” if you are only interested in pages about bass singers, you would enter a query that looks like this bass such as fish -guitar -beer -shoes. You will get much more focused results than a bass-only search.

Search for Similar Pages

Along the same lines, sometimes you find a web page that includes some of the information you are looking for but not all of it. The best way to proceed in this instance is to look for other web pages similar to this one, which you can do with Google’s related: operator.

The related: operator displays on the web pages that are in some way similar to the specified page. For instance, if you have found good information about wildlife on the National Geographic website, you can find similar sites by enter the query related problem.