Google. Very few brands have transitioned beyond their original intent. But Google is one of them. What started in 1998 as a small company launched by two Stanford U students to promote their new search engine has grown to become one of the world's largest conglomerates.
Not only that, but the name Google has evolved to become a noun, an adjective and a verb. Don't believe me? Google it for yourself.
And even though Google now offers a wide gambit of technological solutions to improve people's life. At their core remains the search engine.
Did you know that there are over two trillion Google searches every year? It's hard to fathom how big two trillion is, so let me put it in perspective. There are over 5 billion searches on Google every day. That's 228 million every hour, almost 4 million searches every minute. That's a lot of searching.
With an entire planet using them to satisfy their curious minds, Google must ensure its platform is easy to use. Easy enough for young children and seniors alike. You type in what you're looking for in the search bar, and Google provides you with possible answers. It's that easy.
Of course, Google's results aren't always what you're looking for. But they make it very easy to try again with another search.
But what if I told you some simple tricks could help you get better results on the first try?
Here are 16 search hacks to help you find things faster on Google.
1) Use quotation marks ("") in your search.
Enclosing your search term in quotation marks will return results with that exact phrase.
For example, searching for "How to start a graphic design business" will only show results with those words in that exact order. Using quotation marks in your search makes it easy to find precisely what you're looking for.
NOTE: Using double quotations ("""") tells Google what's inside them MUST be in the search results.
2) Use a minus sign (-) to exclude words from your search.
If your search produced nonrelevant results, try eliminating words by placing a minus sign in front of them.
For example, if you want to know the top speed of a Jaguar, the cat, not the car. You could search for "jaguar speed -car" This will eliminate searches about the jaguar motor vehicle.
3) Use Site: only to show results from a specific website.
Not every website has a search bar. But that doesn't matter if you know Google's site search function. Adding Site: followed by the website you want to search, along with your search term, will return results only from that website.
For example, to find out how many computers you can install Photoshop on, you could search for "Site:adobe.com how many computers can I install Photoshop on?" The results will only give you answer from the Adobe website.
4) Use an Asterisk (*) as a wildcard in your search.
An Asterisk is a star-looking character you get by pressing Shift-8 on your keyboard (*). Replace a word in your search with an Asterisk to see results with multiple possibilities.
For example, if you're planning a trip to Disney land. Searching for "best * at Disney Land" will return results for the best food at Disney Land, the best rides at Disney Land, the best hotels at Disney Land, the best shows at Disney Land, etc. You get the idea.
The Asterisk is very useful when combined with the Site: operator. For example, if you want to find results only from government websites, include site:*.gov in your search string, and you'll only get results from websites with a .gov extension.
5) use OR or AND in all-caps to find multiple results.
Using OR or AND returns results from both sides of the operator.
OR can be used to find multiple results. For example, you could search for "Christmas decorating ideas in blue OR Green." You'll get results showing blue ideas and results showing green ideas.
AND can be similarly used to combine results. Searching for "Christmas decorating ideas in blue AND green" will show you results with ideas that combine blue and green.
6) Use Intitle: to find results from a web page's title.
The Intitle: operator can be very usef
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