Maximizing Google Search

Google is the search engine of choice for a majority of internet users and SEO marketers alike.  Those in the SEO industry especially use Google in many different ways every single day.

It’s surprising, then, the number of users who are unfamiliar with the different simple tools Google provides to target searches.  Simply typing a search term and clicking Google Search is only one of many different ways a user can utilize the Google search engine.

Defining Results

Google uses complex algorithms and methods to return the most accurate search results possible, yet in the end the accuracy and usefulness of a search rests squarely on the shoulders of the user.

Two ways of further defining a Google search are exploring Google’s “advanced options” area, and utilizing modifiers within the search field.

Advanced Search

The “Advanced Search” option appears to the right of the search field on Google’s home page.  This opens up many possibilities to specify a search according to your criteria

The first few criteria are very powerful and let you filter the results to be very specific:

1. All these words – The Google search results will pick up all of the words used in the field, in any order. For example, if you type ‘mens custom Italian black suits,’ into this field, Google will bring back results on that phrase, plus ‘custom mens Italian black suits,’ black suits custom Italian,’ and other combinations of the words.  Obviously, this will yield the many, but not necessarily the best, results.

2. This exact wording or phrase – The Google search results will show only web sites that have the exact phrase ‘mens custom Italian black suits’ appear, in that order.  The amount of results will be much smaller, but your search will be much more targeted.

3. One or more of these words – This is an interesting option to note, because you can choose one word for each field, and Google can then look for those words only in the search results.  This can yield many unwanted results if the user is not careful, however, so the more specific, the better.

4. But don’t show pages that have – Google will automatically eliminate any web sites that include the word you have here.  For example, if you are not looking for wholesale mens suits, you would enter the term ‘wholesale’ into this field to automatically filter those sites out.

Of course, these fields can be utilized simultaneously for even more pointed, specific search results.  Try experimenting to see how Google can work for you.

Modifiers

Modifiers can be seen as kind of a quick shortcut, or ‘keyboard command’ for the advanced search settings.  You can apply advanced filters to a search without having to click on the Advanced Search option.

A few of the most common modifiers include:

Using quotation marks [“”] around the phrase to find an exact match on the search results.  For example, typing “mens custom Italian black suits” into the field will yield results of sites that only have that term exactly as it appears.

Using a dash [-]  before a word tells Google to eliminate that word from the search results and to not show any pages that have that word on them.

Finally, typing site: www.example.com will show you all of the pages on that particular domain that are indexed in Google.  This modifier is particularly useful to those in the SEO and marketing industry, when doing research and analyzing a site’s visibility in Google.

Google is a very powerful tool when used correctly.  These tips are only a fraction of the functions available with Google search, so make sure you are getting the most out of your Google visit.