Tips Learn Yer Search Modifiers

It's easy to take the common Google search for granted. But if you take just a moment to really think about it, you might appreciate it for what it truly is: crazy superhero magic!

Just by typing a few words, a single person can achieve near-instantaneous access to all of the world's collected information. Want to know the capital of Moldova? (It's Chisinau.) Who played the mean judge in Ghostbusters II? (Character actor Harris Yulin.) How long does it take Neptune to orbit the Sun? (164.79 Earth years!) Bam, boom, POW!

As long as you have a connected device, you have the power to know just about everything—that's some Professor X stuff right there.

There are, of course, other capable search engines out there; some tailored to serve very niche audiences. But aside from fictional characters on the CW, is anyone out there really "Binging" anything?

While Google has grown to include numerous other pursuits, search remains the company's core product (and its most profitable, as well). With a decade-and-a-half of refinement behind it, Google search has evolved into a complex and beautifully versatile technology. (And one that alwaysworks. Have you seen Google.com go down? That's no easy accomplishment for the world's most popular website.)

While you probably use it just about every day, there may still be a lot you don't know about the old dependable Google search.

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Learn Yer Search Qualifiers

Google search also supports a variety of search qualifiers that will help to further filter your results. Here are a few good ones to know:

Search inside a single website: If you want results from within only one site, use site: followed directly by the site URL you wish to use. You mustinclude the site's domain, i.e. Galaxy S site:pcmag.com and not Galaxy S site:pcmag.

Search titles only: Use the search intitle: to look for words in the webpage title. For example grasshoppers intitle:gross will only return sites about grasshoppers that have "gross" in the title. Conversely, allintitle: will only return links with multiple words in the title, i.e. allintitle: cow meat yummy.

Search URLs only: Similar to intitle: function, you can search only in the URL using inurl: or allinurl:.

Search text only: intext: or allintext: allows you to only search in the text of a site, as opposed to the title and URL, which the search algorithm usually takes into consideration.

You can use these terms in conjunction with each other or with the previously mentioned modifiers. Remember, the text you are searching for must follow directly after the colon with no spaces between them.

For a comprehensive set of search modifiers and qualifiers, you can check out this handy guide.