In Part One, we covered the basics of searching on Google.com and in Part Two we moved into more advanced search techniques. Part Three covered some ways of using Google you may have never thought of or knew existed. Part Four covered the use of wildcards in your searches. Here, in Part Five, we show ways of using Google for highly specific searches.
Today, I am going to crank it up a notch and get into some more in depth search techniques.
Use matched " marks to narrow your search to contiguous groups of words.
You might be interested in learning about spyware
removal for practical reasons, but if you search on
1a) spyware removal,
google will give you 3,580,000 results (as of this writing). Search on
1b) "spyware removal", however,
and google will give you only 2,170,000 results.
The number of results google serves is not necessarily an inverse
indicator of the caliber of your search query: however, generally, fewer
total results means fewer irrelevant pages you need to wade through before
answering your presenting question. In searches where you know what you
want-- like the home page for your favorite brand of sneakers--typing in
the brand name and looking at the first few results will probably
completely answer your question. If though you are searching, because you
don't know how--but want to--remedy a problem, a productive strategy is to
force google to cough up increasingly selective search results pages. Can
you think of an aspect of spyware removal
that's not relevant to your presenting goal of eradicating it from your
computer? Exclude it from your search by placing the - sign in front of
it. Do a command line search on:
1c) "spyware removal" -history,
and google will give you 1,750,000 results.
You'll get the same results using google's minimally graphic advanced
search user interface page or gui. If you superimposed (1c) on
google's gui, its "Find Results" section--at the top of the page--would
look similar to the following:
Find results with:
all of the words
the exact phrase
spyware removal
at least one of the words
without the words
history
Since the (Ic) search only contains a few terms--and google allows for
simultaneous searching on at least 10 terms (you can squeeze in a few more
using the wildcard * symbol)--it can easily be made more
specific.
You can guess a few words that might be helpful: one, your presenting
question being about total spyware removal
from your computer, would be download (you want google to give you
actionable information, links to pages from which you can download spyware removal software). Since you're searching
google because you're paranoid that spyware is on your HDD, you think that
pages talking about help, protection, and defense are what you want. Add
these four new terms--download, help, protect, defense. As explained
below, it's also helpful to set the display to 100 results per page. The
google gui will look like this before you hit the return key to conduct the
next step of your search:
Find results with:
all of the words
download
the exact phrase
spyware removal
at least one of the words
help protect defense
without the words
history
Why set the display to 100? It's haard to choose useful terms to
narrow your search and make it more specific before you understand what
you're looking for: you're like a person searching for tasty cake
recipes who doesn't know that flour is an ingredient. One efficient way to
find useful terms to include and exclude from your search is to skim the
text summaries google provides on its results page: setting the display to
100 gives you that many more automatically generated text summaries to
skim for useful terms to input into your next search. Hit the return key
and wait for the next step in your search to load: At the top the first
results page from this google search--between the colorful google logo and
the search button--you'll see a single command line search window
containing your terms. You searched on:
1d) help OR protect OR defense "spyware removal" download -history.
Google says it has given you 804,000 results.
Now skim the 100 text summaries below your search window--the so-called
organic listings to the left of the advertisements--on your first results
page. Look for terms that might help further narrow your search. Skimming
summaries for the purpose of harvesting additional terms or phrases to
further narrow your search is not rocket science: you already have great
virus protection software and your browser protects you from the
advertisers; your presenting question was prompted by your being worried
that spyware had infested your computer; you skim the text summaries and
notice that some mention spyware removal
software that also protects against viruses and spam (you don't need think
you need multi-purpose software).
So you repeat your previous search (Id)--this time also excluding pages
that contain the words virus and spam. You can click on google's
advanced search link to get back to the gui--its link is to the right of
the search button at the top of the results page you're on--or paste the
terms directly into your search window, hit the return key, and wait for
the next leg of your search to load. When it does, you'll again see the
colorful google logo and your search window at the top of its first results
page:
1e) help OR protect OR defense "spyware removal" download -history -spam -virus.
Google says it has returned 648,000 results.
What you've done is systematically and efficiently built a more specific
search by harvesting terms from the text summaries on the first results
page from your previous search: pasting selected terms into the search
window at the top of this page--or clicking the link back to the gui and
pasting them into it--requires minimal coordination.
At the *bottom* of its results page, google has a window for searching
within your results: the disadvantage of using this feature is that google
kicks you back to 10 summaries per results page.
The advantage of pasting newly harvested terms into your previous search's
window at the *top* of the results page--or going back to the gui--is that
the display will remain set at 100 summaries per results page.
Now, skim the 100 summaries below your (1e) search window to
make your next even more specific, better search: You can add additional
terms (like the name of your operating system). You can modify existing
ones (you notice that many pages that don't contain the word spam do
contain adware; you realize that probably every page about
spyware
removal
contains the word protect).
You can also use google's gui for additional means of narrowing your search: You
can tell google to return pages written in a particular language; you
can also tell it to return pages
that are in a particular file format (
),
that were updated in a particular time period (
), and
that contain your query terms in particular places (
).
The defaults are the English language and, as shown above, any kind of file
updated anytime that contains your query terms anywhere.
You can, additionally, tell google to only fetch files from a particular
domain--or files from everywhere but there.
Finally, google's gui now offers you two other search options: you can
paste in a URL, and let google fetch you pages its algo selects as being
topically related. You can also paste in a URL, and let google fetch the
pages that link to it.
Only you can locally determine which of these ways of making your search
more specific are the most helpful at a given point. Whatever your reason
for searching, remember that it takes little time and effort to improve a
crude preliminary search, to build a more specific one by directly
harvesting selected output from previous searches--and by using google's built in functions.
If you missed any of the first four installments in this series, you may find them at: http://spyware.pcwash.com/articles_1.html
When not on his soapbox, Andrew Wroblewski is doing battle with the thousands of spyware programs that can affect you via his anti-spyware and spyware removalwebsite: http://spyware.pcwash.com where you can get a FREE spyware scan of your computer system.
