I thought many of us might be unaware of or have forgotten certain helpful techniques Google has given to enable searches … aside from the usual one or more words which Google may, with reason, alter in word order.
1) Phrase Match: As PPC folks know, putting a phrase in “quotation marks” limits the search results to the exact words and word order within the quotation marks.
Uses? When a phrase is commonly used with words between, but the searcher desires no insertions. Dangers? When some insertions would be helpful.
Note: One can combine words within quotation marks with those without.
Example: A search for “open source” will eliminate results like “open pit mining source.”
2) Synonyms: Ever wanted to find a word plus its synonyms? Put a squiggly “~” symbol immediately before the word in question.
Example: A search for “~dog” (using the quotation marks to show what is searched, not a phrase match) should show results like “canine,” “puppy,” “pure bred,” and so one.
Note: Find the “~” symbol in Character Map in your computer.
3) Word Exclusion: Adding a word to a search with the dash or minus character immediately before it (“-” with no space after) excludes the given word from the search results. For example, to find synonyms for the word “dog” without the word “dog” itself, type in “~dogs-dogs”.
4) Exact Match: Use either a plus (“+”) immediately before or double quotation (“”"”) around a word or phrase for which you want no synonyms added. Google will often add synonyms.
5) Wild Card: If you are looking for a variety of things associated with a given word or phrase, add the asterisk character (“*”).
Example: A search for “dog *” will show results like “dog food,” “dog shows,” and so on.
6) Definition: Want to find out the definition of “isosceles”? Add “Def:” before it (Def: isosceles).
7) Find links: Type “link: domainname.com” in a Google search to find how many and where the links are to the domain name you select–like yours and your competitors.
Note: Google searches ignore words like “a,” “the,” “for” so you can exclude them.
Tags: google search techniques
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