Searching the internet can often be frustrating, especially when you get millions of results to sort through. If you use Google, here are some tips to help make your searching easier:
1. Place phrases you want to search for in quotation marks. Entering the words Albert Lea, searches for Albert and Lea separately. Entering "Albert Lea" in quotation marks looks for the two words together and in that order.
2. Use the minus symbol (-) to exclude words from a search. The search bass -fishing will find results about bass that are not related to fishing, such as the musical instrument.
3. Use the tilda(~) to search for a word and all its synonyms. Searching for ~mobile phone will show results with the word phone, as well as cell, cellular, wireless, etc.
4. Using OR searches for webpages that included either of several words. Searching for "vacation" "London" OR "Paris" will bring up results with the word vacation and either London or Paris.
5. Using three dots (...) will search for a range of numbers. The Search Willie Mays 1950...1960 will return results about Willie Mays from that time period.
6. Finally, you can limit your search to a specific type of website, such as .com, .edu or a specific geographic location. Enter your search terms followed by site: and then the type of website, for example, global warming site:edu. The example search will return references to global warming found on .edu websites. Here is a listing of many of the limiters that can be used.
