Are you tired of trying to Google certain things and having it come up with irrelevant results? Then I have the articles for you. If you want to learn how to better utilize symbols in your searches to come up with more accurate results, then continue reading this article and then click here to read part 1.
Filetype
This is another helpful tool for students, fact-checkers, and researchers alike! Have you been scrolling through the results page trying to find a PDF to a specific article for your paper? I’ve been there way too many times throughout college. That’s why when I learned this neat tip, it saved me hours on finding the correct information for my papers.
A filetype is a neat tool for you to use in order to find- just as the name implies- a certain file type. Whether it be a PDF or a Jpeg, just hop on over to Google, put your subject in (for this example let’s use the pacific trash island), put filetype: pdf after your subject, so it would look like this “pacific trash island filetype: pdf” and boom. Only PDFs will show up in your results!
Two Periods
The use of two periods is for when you need to find something in the range of two numbers. It’s basically the symbol equivalent to the word “between” and if you’re in a rush to search something up, typing two periods is faster than typing out the word between.
An example would be if you’re looking for songs that were released in 1997..1999. Then you will only get results that fit within that time frame. Or if you’re into history and want to find out what happened in the world between 1950..1952, just search it like that and you’ll get your results within that time frame.
Location
A location option is a great tool when you’re trying to search for a specific thing that happened in a certain location. This is good to use when researching or staying up to date with the latest events happening in a specific location. Especially since the news outlets can’t cover everything on T.V., so this is a great way to stay informed.
Let’s say you wanted to see when the last volcanic eruption happened on one of Hawaii’s islands. You would search, “latest volcanic eruption location: Kauai” and there you go. Your results will specifically show you when the latest volcanic eruption happened on Kauai.
Quotation Marks
A lot of the time when you’re googling something with more than one word, Google will give you results that only contain one of the keywords instead of all of the keywords. This can make searching for a specific thing horrendous and frustrating. That’s where using quotation marks in your search will be a lifesaver to you and your time.
If you want to make sure Google only gives you results that contain all of your keywords, then put quotation marks around the entire search words. That way, Google will only pull up the results that have all the keywords in them. Let’s say you want to find a dog daycare in your town. Then in Google, you would put, “dog daycare in Westfield, MA” then your results will just be dog daycares within that town and state.
Use These Symbols for a Better Google Search!
Now that you’ve learned some of the neat symbols/features you can use to make your Google searches easier on you, which ones have you already used? Did you learn about some that you didn’t know before? Do you have any other symbols tips to use? Let us know! We’d love to hear from you.
