Google Like A Pro

The world wide web is so vast that it is almost impossible to look for information without the use of search engines like Google.

It serves as our window to the web.

This post is dedicated to give you some tips that may help you get the most out of this technology:

1. Limit your words. Remove unecessary words from your search terms. Remove words like my, it, in, the, etc.
2. Use Advanced Search. (http://www.google.com/advanced_search) It is my homepage actually. From there it is easier to fine-tune your search. 
3. If you're a little hesitant to use Advanced Search, you can still use the normal Google coupled with some operators. Here are my favorites to use:

• Putting a - (negative) sign before a word will tell Google not to show any webpages containing that word. For example, you want to search for the keyword virus but not including computer viruses, you can type in virus -software.
• Putting double quotes before and after a word or phrase will tell Google to search for those exactly ("this is your search term") . This is useful, for instance, if you're looking for non-english words. And if you don't want Google suggesting that your spelling is incorrect.
• Define: word If you typed in on Google search box with this format, it will give you the dictionary definition of the word. Of course you could type in any word. :)
• You can use Google search box like a normal calculator. Go ahead and try it. Also take note that it follows MDAS. Don't know MDAS? What on earth! (joke!) see this blog on MDAS Rule. :))) 
• If you place site: .edu or site .org after your keywords, Google will only give you results that are from .edu or .org websites. This is specially helpful when looking for reliable sites that can be cited as a reference on research papers. For example, in looking for researches about the timeline of the Internet, we should type in: internet timeline site:.org and/or internet timeline site:.edu (Obviously, although ending with .org wikipedia.org is excluded) Why can't wikipedia be cited as a reference?
• An asterisk (*) serves like a blank for Google to fill in. For example, you can't remember the exact words of an idiomatic expression, let Google do it for you. (Try "a * on the wrist") As you can see, I used double quotes to tell Google that I want that exact phrase but I also want Google to fill in that (asterisk) blank.

This is the interface of Google Advanced Search: one of my favorite sites on the Internet! 

Well, that's it. I hope you learned something from this post.

P.S. Don't hesitate to comment, suggest, and ask questions below. :)