Best Practices for Improving Your Online Search Experience
July 5, 2011
Google is among the best of the best when it comes to search engines. In fact, Google receives over 300 million visitors and well over 2 billion search queries on any given day. Sadly, the average people performing these searches are not using the search engine to its fullest extent.
There are a countless number of ways that you can target your search more effectively and increase your search experience. Below are a few tips to get you started.
Quotes
Use quotes around words that you are looking for together. Otherwise, you will get results that would randomly contain any or all of the keywords you list. Example: “Independence Day”.
Minus Sign (-)
Place a minus sign preceding any words you wish to exclude from your search. Example: “Michael Jackson” -“Jackson 5”. This will only display results for Michael Jackson, unrelated to the Jackson 5.
Plus Sign (+)
Place the plus sign before any words that you want to include in your search. Example: “Michael Jackson” +“Jackson 5”. Now, search results that appear will only showcase topics related to both Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5.
Site
Include the website in your search query when you are looking for something specific on any given site. Example: “Link Building” site:ProspectMX.com. The hits are only related to the topic of choice for the site that’s submitted to the operator. This can also be reversed if you’re trying to get results when you want to exclude a site from your results. Example: “Fashion News” -site:FashionNews.com.
Fail
When you’re searching for negative product reviews or even epic sports fails, consider placing the word “fail” immediately following your initial query. Example: “sports” fail.
InTitle
Starting your search with “InTitle” tells the search engine to limit your hits by containing only those terms in the text of the title. Example: InTitle: “Top 10 Vacation Spots”.
InText
Including “InText” in your search query restricts Google to contain all the words you inquired to appear on the text of the page. Example: InText: “Top 10 Vacation Spots”.
InURL
By placing “InURL” in your search, you are telling the operator to place the words as they appear in the website URL of the search results. Example: InURL: “Top 10 Vacation Spots”.
Happy Googling!
By Ashley Walter, Director of Operations
Ashley Walter is ProspectMX's Marketing Operations Manager. With a BS in International Business and concentrations in Marketing and Spanish, Ashley uses her knowledge in these industries to manage every aspect of a client's campaign. Before coming to work full-time at ProspectMX, she held an internship with us and demonstrated remarkable skill and knowledge in the internet marketing field. Creative, meticulous, and hardworking, Ashley is the go-to girl for ProspectMX and can handle any task or situation that is thrown at her.