If you know the right syntax, you can home in on a short list of targeted search results. Here are some of the key phrases and how to use them.
A PLUS FOR + AND - To make Google include stop words (common words that it would otherwise ignore, such as the) you can use a +(plus sign). To make Google exclude stop words, replace the + with a -(minus sign). (With all syntax words, make sure there is no space after either sign or after a colon.) Example: to find keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Word, type keyboard+shortcut+word. Replace word with any other application name to get keyboards shortcuts for it, such as OE (for Outlook Express), Quicken, and Acrobat.
INTITLE: tells Google to search for just words found in Web page titles. Example: intitle:dark chocolate
INURL: Google looks only in URL's of Web pages. Example: inurl:baseball
FILETYPE There are a number of file types searched by google in addition to standard HTML-formatted pages. Example: Typing filetype:doc dark chocolate brings back only Word documents on the subject of dark chocolate. Similarly for other file types, only files created with the corresponding programs are returned. Example:
- Adobe Acrobat (pdf)
- Lotus 1-2-3 (wk1, wk2, and so on)
- Microsoft Excel (xls)
- Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)
- Rich Text Format (rtf)
- Shockwave Flash (swf)
- Text (ans, txt)
INTEXT Google searches only in the body text of Web pages - not in links, URL's or titles. Example:
intext:micrometric or
intext:micrometric.com
SITE: Use this bit of syntax when you want to limit Google's search to a particular site. Example:
site:micrometric.com Microsoft mouse would offer only references to the rodent that are on our Web site.
Froogle, Google's shopping site targets the item or stores you are looking for more precisely than if you performed the same search in the Google search bar. But you can still get a large number of hits if an item is sold on a legion of Web sites. To narrow your search even more in Froogle, you can search by a specific store. Example: store:macys returns with everything the store sells.
Add an item before, and the search is more specific: chocolate store:macys
Once you get the results, Froogle lets you narrow your query by price range, topic area, and more in a separate pane on the left side of the results page.