Searching Google

Google can be a great tool, but only if you know how to use it. This little article explains some great tips that are useful for searching with Google.

Basics

Let's start with the basics. The number of quality results you will get will depend on your search terms. First of all, you should use specific terms. If you're looking for oranges from Florida, a simple search of just oranges will get you a lot of useless results. You better try florida oranges, and if you're looking for tangy oranges from Florida, tangy florida oranges should do better.

Another useful tip is to try different terms. If you're looking for Fruity Loops (it's a professional sound creation tool) related material, you may want to try both fruity loops and fl studio (they changed the name of the program after version 4). These searches aren't very good though, so to make them better, we have to specify them as a single phrase, and that brings us to quotes.

Quotes are a good thing. The examples above for Fruity Loops are not good searches. They can turn up a lot of useless results (well, in this example, with no quotes it doesn't really matter because there really isn't anything else that is named Fruity Loops or FL Studio - but it will matter in other cases). Quotes would have faired good in those above situations. Try "fruity loops" and "fl studio". But remember, quotes are good in some situations and bad in other situations.

Tricks

Many webmasters deploy little clever tricks that makes Google think that it's a good webpage, but really, it leads you to worthless information.

A popular trick is to place a bunch of keywords right next together and make Google think that the page has that information. What's an example? Look below.

Free Ringtones and More
... free ringtones games sounds midi rttl stuff create programs tools converters movies cartoons download nokia phone mobile programs applications how to tutorial more cheap ...
www.example.com/free-ringtones-rttl-converters-tv.html - 4k - Cached - Similar Pages

If you searched for the term "ringtones" in Google, the results could have looked like the above. As you see, the webmaster just put a bunch of words together, like "free", "games", "midi", "rttl", "nokia", and many other terms. The URL even has those terms in them. An uninformed person would have just clicked that link, and would have wasted his time, after finding out nothing that he wanted to find.

A "good", "regular" webpage would look like below. The terms seem to be in the context of the page, instead in a list of of 50 or so random terms. They tell you various information as if you were at that page and don't know what to do.

Ringtones
... Home | Downloads | Ringtones You can browse the ringtones below. We have ... Compatibility of our ringtones ... Select your phone model Nokia ...
www.example.com/ringtones_list.html - 4k - Cached - Similar Pages

Well, there are more tricks, but this one appears most predominately. You should watch out for these. Sometimes searches could have tons of pages of "crap results" like the far above example. But, of course, sometimes some "good" webmasters do use random term lists, but in most cases, they won't (mainly because informed people skip them).

Conclusion

That's about it. I hope I have helped you search better and use your time more wisely. Tell others so they don't waste their time!

User Feedback & Comments

Please click above to comment or to view comments!

© Copyright 2001-2004 The Risen Realm Studios. The contents of this site is the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. By accessing this site, or any of its services, whether directrly, or indirectly, you acknowledge your acceptance to the Terms of Service.