Not getting what you're looking for when you search?
Try these advanced Google search strategies. Sample searches are in [square brackets]
| Strategy | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| OR | searching for one term OR another term | [Istanbul OR Constantinople] |
| site: | searches only within a specific site (or subdomain) | [schedule site:bcdschool.org] |
| filetype: | search for a specific type of file (ex. PPT, PDF, XLS) | [lesson plan filetype:ppt] |
| -term | eliminate terms from your results | [mullet -hair] |
| word * word | * is a placeholder that will be filled in with any word | [every year * people...] |
| "word" |
find exact word - no synonyms. Also indicates that a term must be in the results |
["freedom"] |
| "set of words" | search for an exact quote or phrase | ["I have a dream"] |
| around(X) | Find pages containing two words or phrases within X words of each other | [student AROUND(3) activism] |
| site:[tld] |
search within a specific country using the top level domain (tld) search [tld countryname] to find the top level domain |
[vaccination site:jp] |
| context term | add a term to your search to specify the type of source you're looking for |
ex: [map], [timeline], [schematic], [infographic] [chart] |
Use the menus in your search results to narrow and refine results
Specify a time period (Click on Tools --> Any time to select a time range or enter a custom range)
Sort image results by color (Tools --> Color)
Limit video search results by duration (Tools --> Any duration)
Use specialized search tools:
Ngram Viewer - charts the frequency of terms/search strings as they appear in GoogleBooks data from 1500-2019
Dataset Search - search for and download datasets
Google Scholar - search for academic journals (note: not all will be publicly available)
Reverse Image Search - click on the camera to upload an image to search for
Google Trends - explore the popularity of search terms over time and in different locations