Typing a few key words into search engines such as and often doesn鈥檛 yield what I鈥檓 after.
Here are my favourite ways for honing searches.
鈥� Put quote marks around a phrase. Typing sandy Parksville beaches will produce聽 results that have those three words scattered throughout, while the quote mark approach 鈥� 鈥渟andy Parksville beaches鈥� 鈥� yields entries with that exact phrase.听
鈥� If you what you鈥檙e looking for is on a specific site, use the following sequence.
search words site:nytimes.com or 鈥渟earch words鈥� site:nytimes.com. The search will be limited to just nytimes.com, or whatever website you type.
鈥� One of Google鈥檚 instruction pages says you can ignore spelling, Google will figure it out. I don鈥檛 find that to be helpful advice. Proper spelling helps, and saves time. But go ahead and make your best guess if your brain just can鈥檛 produce the proper spelling for 鈥渃onnoisseur鈥� or 鈥渞estaurateur鈥�; Google can help.
鈥� Instruct a search engine to ignore a word by putting a hyphen in front of it:
sandy Parksville -beaches
Google has a .听
There鈥檚 also this
I haven鈥檛 found an equivalent for Bing.
Google鈥檚 advanced search is worth a try. You don鈥檛 have to memorize search techniques; just fill in the blanks. , or by clicking on the gear symbol at the upper right of a Google search results page.
Google and Bing aren鈥檛 the only games in town. , which聽 offers answers from a curated collection of information, instead of the web.
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