Strategy and Explanation
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Query Experiment
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# of Hits
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Narrow your search by being as precise an exact as you can:
Instead of searching through oodles of pages that are not what you are looking for, start by being as exact as you can. Use the “with all of the words” and “without the words” fields to narrow your search.
If one of your terms has synonyms, either of which might appear on the page, add them to the “with any of the words” field.
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Imagine that you're interested in the legendary lost continent of Atlantis. There have been several movies with Atlantis in the title, but you're not interested in them. You are also not interested in the space shuttle Atlantis. Try this search...
Atlantis
With all: Atlantis
Without: shuttle film movie DVD
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Find Exact phrases:
If you type a phrase into the “with the exact phrase” field, you’ll be able to locate pages in which the words appear together in an exact order. This is very useful for finding things that have a proper name consisting of several words such as places, book titles and people.
It is also useful when you can remember a unique and exact phrase from something you have read or heard and wish to find out more about it.
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You’ve heard of a fine public university in the lower left corner of the US and you want to know more about it. Here’s how to search for it poorly:
With all: San Diego State University
Now try this search…
Exact phrase: San Diego University
Exact phrase: Jenny kissed me when we met
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Trim back the URL:
This “net” is not Google specific. Sometimes you’ll find a great page buried deep inside a folder, inside a folder, inside a folder, etc. You think that there may be other pages helpful to you nearby. Trim back the URL one segment at a time to see what happens.
This is also a good strategy to use if you get a 404 message (Page cannot be found). The page may have been moved into a different folder or location on the site. Trace your way back to the top to see if you can find the page.
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You found this great Romeo & Juliet WebQuest that you really like. Are there more where that came from?
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/education/projects/webquests/shakespeare/
Someone tells you of another site with a cool Shakespeare WebQuest but it’s wrong. Can you find the correct URL by trimming back the URL?...
http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/wmi/wq
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Look for Similar pages:
Once you have found a site you like on Google, it is very easy to find similar pages or pages linked to it. Use these features to find more of a good thing!
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Find places similar to the page: kids.msfc.nasa.gov
Find places that link to the page: kids.msfc.nasa.gov
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