michigan informatics
| Google Defaults and Operators | |
|---|---|
| AND Searches: | Default |
| OR Searches: | race OR ethnicity |
| Include Words: | teens +tobacco |
| Exclude Words: | health -mental |
| Phrase Searches: | "public health" |
| Common Words: | Ignored |
| Spell Check: | Yes |
| Case Sensitive: | No |
Google is the most popular and widely used of all the search engines. It offers a wide variety of search features and specialized search services, but the primary reason it is so popular is because of how well it ranks its results. Google was the first major search engine to rank search results based on link analysis and this practice revolutionzed the search engine industry.
Below are examples which illustrate some of Google's most important search features. Click on the Google Search button to see the results of each search.
Automatic AND Between Words
When you enter multiple terms into Google, the search engine will return pages which include all of the terms you entered. You do not need to type in the word AND between each term.
Word Variations
At times, Google will search for variations on the terms you have entered. For example, searching on the term Teen will also retrieve pages using the term Teenage and Teens. While helpful, this feature does not work on all, or even most, terms. In order to determine exactly which words Google has searched, you need to look at the results of the search. You can turn off this feature by using a plus (+) sign before each term.
Common Words (where, how, you, etc.)
There are a number of common words that Google will ignore, such as You, What, And. If you include these words in your search, they will not be searched. If you have common words that you need to include in your search, you can add a plus (+) sign before each term.
Phrase Searching (“Quotes”)
In order to search for phrases in Google, you need to place quotation marks around your phrase. Phrase searching will also turn off the exclusion of common words and word variations.
Exclude Words (-)
If your search retrieves too many off-topic results, you can exclude words from your search results using a minus (-) sign before the excluded word.
Synonyms (OR)
When you need to search for synonyms or related terms, you need to use an upper case OR between each term or phrase. Be careful: Google will only search for the first ten terms that you enter.
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