Updated Feb 18, 2005
The
following are the most common operators available in Google:
+ identifies the term as essential to the search. All hits
must include this item. For example "+war" would find sites that
include war
- excludes items with the search term. For example, "
–music” would eliminate all sites that contain the word music
or finds items the have either of the search terms. For
example, "India or Pakistan" would find items that pertain to India
or Pakistan. Only one term must exist in order to find a match.
* truncate symbol. Finds
items that begin with the search term and have any ending. For example,
translat* would search for items beginning with "translat". Items
pertaining to Translation, translations, translates or translate would be
included.
~ search for a synonym.
For example, “ ~bird ~fowl” would search for sites that include either bird or
fowl or both
“” phrase search. Finds
sites that include the exact phrase. For example, “British Columbia” would only
find sites with an exact match.
search term site:url
Restricts search to a specific website. For example,
if you want to search the health Canada
website for information on nutrition labeling search ‘nutrition label
site:www.hc-sc.gc.ca’
beginning
range..end range
search a number range. For example you might want to
learn about England in the mid 13th century from about 1250-1300. To
search this use “england 1250..1300”
Examples
+elizabeth*
history 1550..1616
+bass
–music +fish
+canada
history 1914..1918
volunteer
hours site:www.peelschools.org
+elizabethan
costume ~fashion ~clothes