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Google and Google Scholar Search Tips: Advanced Searching

Advanced searching tips and setting your library links in Google Scholar to get more University Libraries purchased content.

Advanced Search and Using Operators

Did you know two people could do the same search in Google, but see different results displayed?  That's because the Google search engine takes into account previous searches and customizes the results.

Use Advanced search and operators to target the power of your Google searches.

Searching

 

Advanced Search

 

Go to www.google.com/advanced_search 

or

once you’ve done a Google search, you’ll find it after you click on the gear icon in the top right corner.

 

The form shows you how to search for

     phrases

     either term

     and other options

 

Operators

 

 “  ”

Use quotation marks to match an exact phrase or word

“islamic state”

 

OR

Type a capitalized OR between words to look for either term

isis OR “islamic state”

 

site:

Search within a specific site or a particular domain

ebola site:cnn.com

ebola statistics site:gov

 

*

Add an asterisk for any unknown or wildcard terms

“thomas * edison” influence

 

intitle:

Search for the term in the title of the search results.  One way to try to target your search when you get lots of results.

 

-

Use a minus sign to exclude

jaguar –car

“green tea” –site:com

 

 

Narrowing

 

The Advanced search form makes it easy to narrow your search, including by:

language

region (country)

site or domain (ex:  com, edu, gov, org)

file type

usage rights

After searching google.com, you’ll find some options for limiting your search presented on the page and under “Search Tools”

or

you can go to the Advanced search by clicking on the gear icon in the top right corner.

 

more search help from Google

Are you a long time Google searcher?  No longer supported:

~     tilde used to bring back similar terms, Google now does this automatically

 +    plus sign(term had to be in the results

Google and Google Scholar Search Tips handout

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