 How
to REALLY Use
Google: Part One
First Published: June 2003
Last Update: June 2003
Author: Steve Robichaud and Andrew
Wroblewski
Copyright 2003 http://www2.direct-response-marketing.net
In a matter of a couple of short years, the Google.com search engine
has become the world's favorite way to find what they're looking for
online. Now, most of you who are reading this are saying "Duh",
but let me ask you this: Do you REALLY know how to use Google and get the
most out of this incredible search technology? Hopefully, these tips will
help you find EXACTLY what you want the next time you head on over to
"Google Land" and start searching.
To start, unlike most search engines, Google does not care if your
search term is in UPPER or lower case. In fact, it can even be MiXeD case
and the search results will be identical no matter how you type in your
term.
The Google GOLDEN Rule: BE SPECIFIC!
When using the Google search engine, you must be specific in what you
ask and HOW you ask it to get the results you desire.
How do you be specific with Google?
Let's say you are interested in finding out more about the field of
Direct Response Marketing. To search for that exact phrase you put
"quotes" around the phrase like this: "direct response
marketing". This forces Google to cough up search results with those
exact words in that specific order, only. If you didn't use quotes and
just typed in direct response marketing, you would get results that
included the words: direct, response and marketing mixed in with the MORE
SPECIFIC results of the precise phrase "direct response
marketing".
(BTW.......for those of you who are used to searching by putting the word
"and" between all your search words, with Google, it's not
necessary. Google automatically "thinks" like that by default.)
You can use the "or" feature on Google. For example:
"direct response marketing" or "direct response
advertising" and you will get combined results for both exact
phrases. The word "or" can be replaced with the "pipe"
( | ) symbol (the symbol above the "\" forward slash on your
keyboard) to achieve the same results.
More Features with Google!
Now, let's say you want to search for articles written about the
subject of Direct Response Marketing. You can use the Google
"require" feature and have a specific word included in the
search just by adding a "+" sign in front of the keyword you
want included.. For example you would type: "direct response
marketing" +articles and the results would give you articles about
Direct Response Marketing. You can also "exclude" a certain word
from your searches by using the "-" (minus sign) like:
"direct response marketing" -fees, which would give results
about Direct Response Marketing excluding "fees". Whenever you
can, try to combine these three symbols (quotes, plus and minus signs)
into a single search to give you even more targeted results. Now, go
practice on Google using these simple tips and meet us back here next time
for Part Two when we offer tips about some of the more
"advanced" and "juicy" features you can implement to
get the most out of your searches on the world's most frequently used
search engine: Google.com
Advanced Options for Google:
Google has some advanced search options, which come in quite handy;
depending on what items you may be searching. TITLE SEARCH: Allows you to
search for pages and sites that have specific words or phrases in their
title. For example: intitle: "direct response marketing"
This search would only give you results of sites that have that particular
phrase in their title.
Site Search:
Gives you the opportunity to search pages ONLY within a specific site
or domain (or using the "negative" results technique from Part
One you can "exclude" results from a specific domain or site as
well). For example: "lead generation"
site:direct-response-marketing.net This search would only provide results
for the phrase "lead generation" from the site direct-response-marketing.net
URL Searches:
Allows you to search for pages or sites that have a specific word or
phrase in their URL. For example: inurl: "direct marketing" This
search would only give you a list of sites that have the exact phrase
"direct marketing" in their URL. To do a real power search, try
combining a couple of the above techniques into one search like: intitle:
"direct response marketing" -site: ebay.com This search would
give you results for your selected phrase, found in a title, but not on
ebay.com Neat, huh?
Related Searches:
Let's say you want to search for sites (competitors ? ) to a
specific site. Once again we'll use our own site as an example: related:
direct-response-marketing.net this search will show sites that have
related content and subject matter to the site which you typed into after
"related:"
Google Limits:
Google does have some limits and one of those is the actually number of
keywords you can search on at the same time. That limit is (10). Type in
anymore than (10) keywords and the subsequent words will not be included
in your search and thus, are irrelevant.
Common words are ignored by Google such as: "a, about, an, and, are,
as at, be, by, from, how, I, in, is, it, of, on, or, that,the this, to,
we, what, when, where, which, with". You can override this limitation
by putting a plus sign ( + ) in front of any of the above words when using
them in a search phrase.
Wildcards:
A wildcard search uses the asterisk sign ( * ) (the one above the #8 on
your keyboard) to represent other non-specific characters or words. For
example: "direct response *" would turn up results for: direct
response marketing
direct response advertising
direct response television
direct response radio (and a few more).
You can use the wildcard symbol ( * ) and override the Google keyword
limit and actually search for MORE than (10) keywords at a time because
the ( * ) is not counted as a word.
Now, go practice on Google using these advanced tips and meet us back here
next time for Part two when we offer tips about some MORE
"advanced" and "juicier" features you can use to get
the most out of your searches on the world's most frequently used search
engine: Google.com
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Andrew Wroblewski and Steve Robichaud have been helping people and businesses learn how to effectively use the
power of the internet since Moby Dick was a minnow. To contact them and/or to learn more visit or write:
http://www2.direct-response-marketing.netemail: admin@direct-response-marketing.net
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