Google offers a remarkable set of powerful features. Unfortunately, most people are not aware of these possibilities. They use only the most basic functionality offered by Google and then waste their time on weeding out unwanted search results. Google gives you options like limiting your search to a particular site, excluding certain file types, using synonyms and wildcards, and more. Here are a few suggestions on how to get the most out of Google.

Summary

""             enclose a phrase
+              include search parameter
-              exclude search parameter
|              logical OR operator
*              wildcard representing additional words or word variations
NEAR           search keywords must be near each other
site:          include or exclude site or domain (use + or -)
daterange:     find results within a range of dates (YYYY-MM-DD..YYYY-MM-DD)
filetype:      include or exclude file types (use + or -)

Including and Excluding Search Keywords

+wonderful +world

Will find all pages containing words “wonderful” and “world”

+"wonderful world"

Will find all pages containing the phrase “wonderful world”

+"wonderful world" -"louis armstrong"

Will find all pages containing the phrase “wonderful world” but NOT containing the phrase “louis armstrong”

site:wikipedia.org +"wonderful world" -"louis armstrong"

Will find pages on Wikipedia.org site containing the phrase “wonderful world” but NOT containing the phrase “louis armstrong”

Wildcards, Operators and Related Terms

+hitachi +"hard ~drive" +SATA -IDE

Will find all pages containing “hitachi”, “SATA”, the phrase “hard drive” or “hard disk”, but NOT the word “IDE”

+"incredible * adventure"

Will find pages containing phrases like “Incredible Hulk: Adventure”, “incredible outdoor adventure”, etc. In this case the asterisk represents one or more words located between the two other serach terms.

+"incredible | exciting adventure"

Will find pages containing phrases “incredible adventure” or “exciting adventure”.

Special keywords

site:wikipedia.org +"principle of conservation of energy"

Will find all pages on Wikipedia.org that contain the search phrase.

-site:wikipedia.org +"principle of conservation of energy"

Will find all pages that contain the search phrase, except those from wikipedia.org

site:org +"principle of conservation of energy"

Will find all pages on the .org domain that contain the search phrase

link:www.playboy.com

Will find pages that links to Playboy.com and contain the search phrase.

info:www.playboy.com

Will show information about Playboy.com

related:www.playboy.com

Will find Web sites similar in content to Playboy.com

cache:www.playboy.com

Will show you the most recent Google page cache for the Playboy.com homepage.

Other search options

It may be a good idea to include Newsgroups and Blogs in your search. A good alternative to Google is AllTheWeb.