Google Search For Nerd-Do-Wells

By David Valentine, BFA, ISTE (International Society of Technology Educators)

When I did my first Google search I was so impressed with how much information I could gather that I failed to consider how useful those links were to the goals of my search, or whether I needed to go through one hundred and fifty thousand of them. Since then I’ve learned that I can control the scope and intent of my searches by using powerful features built into Google Search like keystrokes, and command line keywords.

Here is an introduction to power user techniques that will make your searches more accurate and provide teachable moments for your students..

Keystrokes That Hit the Mark

Ø       When you place a tilde (~) in front of any word, Google will find the definition and synonyms associated with the word.

Ø       Placing a plus “+” in front of a word forces Google to search only for that particular word, and to ignore any variations of it. Example: (+kneel) will generate definitions of kneel but will not expand to include words like kneeler.

Ø       Inversely, a minus “-“  in front of a word tells Google to ignore synonyms or homonyms of that word. For example, dope –person yields sites about drugs, not slang variations for a stupid person.

Ø       You don’t need and to link words together such as pencils and paper; pencils (space) paper will do.

 Quotation marks can produce terrific targeted results when you use them wisely. Here are a few to remember:

Ø       You can link names, phrases and places as multiple keywords by containing them within sets of quotation marks  Example: “John Wayne” ”movie westerns” “Monument Valley” will yield an anthology of John Wayne movie sites where the location Monument Valley, Utah was prominently featured.

Ø       Another powerful keystroke that works within quotes is the asterisk (*). You can substitute a word in a phrase or title by using an asterisk. Google sees the asterisk as a “wild card” character. It will interpret the complete string of characters as if it were an intelligible phrase. Example: “Four * and seven * ago” will yield the full text of the Gettysburg Address, and related sites about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

Ø       A rule of thumb about quotation marks and capital letters or articles of speech. Google ignores any capital letters not contained within quotes.

Ø       Put OR (uppercase), between words or phrases in quotation marks to create related ideas into one search. Example, “The British Invasion” “1964” OR “1980” will yield sites on British domination of popular music during the 1960’s and the1980’s.

Command Line Keywords

The term “command line” harkens back to the days when keyboard commands rather than mouse clicks were the norm in personal computing. Even though we live in a world of graphical interfaces, a keyword command of one or two syllables can produce startling results.  And when you combine them with your keywords you can orchestrate search results that will take your breath away. Here are a few to remember.

Ø       INTITLE followed by a colon and a descriptive keyword or compound phrase (with spaces) produces a list of sites using your keyword in the title. Example, intitle:japanese robots.  Similarly, INTEXT followed by a colon and your keyword (no spaces) produces site descriptions with your keyword in the text body.

Ø       LINK: (colon) followed by the complete URL (no spaces) reveals a list of recent, active sites linked to your keyword. On the other hand, type the URL with spaces and you get a higher number of sites containing text that use your keyword.

Ø       SITE: (colon), the complete URL, or domain name, or country code (no spaces) followed by a space, then the keyword will produce sites specifically about the keyword from within the URL, domain or country code. For instance site:dvscmedia.com fine art reveals curriculum vitae about yours truly and the fine art links in my web site. Another example: site:gov environment produces a list of environmental sites related to various agencies of the federal government.

Ø       FILETYPE This command is really cool!  You can create lists of specific sites containing documents, spreadsheets, pdfs, power points, images or any file type by using an extension, and a defining keyword.  The syntax is filetype: followed by a colon (no space) an extension such as, .doc, xls, ppt, pdf, jpg, etcetera and a defining keyword or phrase. Let’s say I want to find all the existing power points on the art of Jean Michel Basquiat. The search string would look like this: filetype:ppt “Jean Michel Basquiat” .  Jean Michel Basquiat is a proper name, so I enclosed it in quotation marks. The search yields seven pages of power points on Basquiat and his art in English and several other languages. Type: filetype:ppt “Jean Michel Basquiat”-foreign languages and see how the results change. There is so much more to discover which we'll have to save until next time. Meanwhile, practice using keywords and command keystrokes to keep your searches precise and relevant. Knowledge is power!