When searching for information on the Web, Google’s Advanced Search offers many useful options to help narrow and control your results. By combining some of the tips below, you can narrow searches to authoritative sites and “Google” more effectively and efficiently. (Note: If the advanced search link is not visible on the Google home page, click the icon in the top right hand corner.)

1. Google is NOT case sensitive – no need to capitalize letters. DO NOT use “And” to connect words. Use quotation marks (“ “) to search for a phrase. Example: “global warming.”

2. Use the “Exact wording or phrase” field to search for a specific combination of words. Example: give me liberty or give me death (there is no need to include quotation marks.)

3. Use the “One or more of these words” field to incorporate words with similar meaning. Example, movies OR films OR “motion pictures.”

4. Use the “But don’t show pages…” field to exclude terms that are not relevant to your topic. For example, if you are looking for information on the Harry Potter books and want to exclude information about the Harry Potter movies, add the terms movie, film, etc., in the unwanted words field.

5. Use the “Search within a site or domain” field to limit your search to a specific internet domain. Example: .edu for education sites, .gov for government sites, or enter an entire URL to search within an individual site.

6. Use the “Where your keywords show up” field to limit your search to terms that appear in a specific area of a Web site. Example: “In the title of the page,” “In the text of the page,” “In the URL of the page.”

Other useful search options include date, language, file type (PDF, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.), and geographic region. Also see Google Search Tips for further details.

Sample Google Advanced Search

The following example limits search results to government internet sites (domain = .gov) that address global warming/greenhouse effect, and the influence of cars or automobiles, but excluding the influence of factories or airlines.