Though search engines are fantastic, they often give too much information than what searchers are actually looking for. They are so good that a simple one-word search would display 20,000 pages!

If you're an average researcher who needs ideas on how to use the power of search engines to your best advantage, you've come to the right place. This guide will give you tips and techniques on how to search for better result.

To illustrate, let's do a search at Google.com.


Exact Phrase

· Open Google.com in your browser.

· Type "Chevrolet Optra Magnum" in the search box, then click search. Alternatively, you can press Enter on your keyboard. Enclose the phrase in double quotes. This will tell the search engine to look for the pages that matches the exact phrase.

Google.com will search for the phrase found inside the quotes and will display all pages that contains the exact phrase Chevrolet Optra Magnum in the site's title or description.

Synonyms

If your search terms have synonyms, you might also want them to include in your search results. You can do that by putting the tilde character (~) before the search term.

Typing ~mobile plans in the search box will return sites that talks about or contains 'mobile plans', 'cellular plans', 'cellphone plans' in their pages.

Excluded Words

Say for example you want to search for 'silver jewelry'. Typing in 'silver jewelry' in the search box would give web pages that contains the word 'silver jewelry' on it.

If you want to filter your search results so that sites related to gold won't be displayed, use the (-) operator. This will exclude all sites related to gold jewelry.

Multiple Words

The OR operator will return web sites that contain multiple words in your search term. For example, typing 'Mahindra Xylo Discounts or Offers' in the search box will show pages with the word 'Mahindra Xylo' and either 'Discounts' or 'Offers'.

If you will incorporate these simple, basic tips in your searches, you'll be a much better and informed searcher than most Web users. Your searches will be more specific you don't have to waste time looking for irrelevant information deep in the results pages.