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How to Find Anything Online Fast: Search operators, Vertical Engines, and Tips

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Find anything online fast


In our current digital age, finding information online has never been easier. You can take up your phone, open a browser and find what you want. Simple right? Not exactly. 

While technology has made information very accessible, it is quite overwhelming to sift through all the noise and get relevant information. 
With billions of web pages at your fingertips, finding the exact thing you need can be a challenge.

Whether you are researching for work, school or personal projects, knowing how to use search engines efficiently can save you a lot of time and effort. 

In this article, I would show you how you can leverage search operators, advanced techniques, and specialized search engines to rapidly get reliable information online. 

How Search Engines Work 

Let us begin with understanding how search engines work. 
A search engine like Google or Bing scans and index the contents of the web,  ranking the results based on relevance, keywords,  and other factors, so that you get those results that are in line with your query. 

It all starts with Crawling. The search engine uses bots to discover new or updated content on the web. The pages the bots or crawlers find are then Indexed, that means they are stored in a database. Now, whenever you search for something (your search query), the search engine goes to its index and picks out those pages that are most relevant to what you want, and it shows it to you. 
Process of a Search Engine : Crawl, index and result



Understanding how this works helps you appreciate why certain searches yield better results than others, and how you can modify your queries to get the results you want. 

The Key to Precise Searches: Search Operators 

Search operators are special characters and commands that improves your searches by narrowing down or expanding your results. 
If you typed in any query without refining it, you may end up frustrated by irrelevant links or too many search results. By employing operators, the accuracy of your searches improves. 
Some search operators are:

1. Quotation Marks (" ")

If you are looking for a specific name, book title or phrase, enclosing that word or phrase in quotes ensures that the search results only include those pages that contain the phrase. 
For example "benefits of hardwork" only shows results with the phrase within their content. 

2. site: Operator

This restricts your search to a specific website or domain. If you wanted results from Quora only, you could do something like 
search engines to use site:quora.com.
 You can also use this to filter results for a specific domain like  .edu, .com, or  .org 
For instance Search engines to use site:.org would only show pages having a .org domain

3. filetype: Operator

If you are looking for a specific type of document, using filetype: narrows down the results. 
Let's assume you want a PDF document on Internet of Things. Your search query would be something like 
Internet of things filetype:pdf
Your results would only show PDF files 
You can use filetype: to get other types of files as well, spreadsheets (filetype:xls), document (filetype:doc), or PowerPoint (filetype:ppt)

4. Minus sign (-)

This operator excludes certain terms from the result. It is useful if you are looking for information about a term that has several meanings and you wish to focus on just one of those. 
For instance, you are researching Virus. Now virus could mean a microorganism or a computer malware. If you want to exclude anything having to do with computers, your query could look like
Virus  -computer

5. intitle:

You use this when you want to limit your search results to only include those pages that have a specified keyword in the title.
intitle:benefits of hardwork
The above would show all pages that have "benefits" in the title

6. allintitle:

If you want all your keywords from your search query to be in the title, then simply use allintitle:
allintitle: benefits of hardwork
The above would show all results that have "benefits of hardwork" in their title. 

7. intext:

With this operator, you limit the results to only those with the specified keyword in the content of the page
intext:manager

8. allintext:

Similarly, this operator shows only the results that include all the terms of your search query within the contents of the page. 
allintext: productivity apps to use

Formulating Effective Search Queries 

Creating effective search queries is important for finding what you need quickly. 
Here are some things you should consider:

1. Be specific 

Avoid broad terms that could mean a lot of things. Instead of typing in something like "time management ", specify what exactly you want such as "best time management apps " so you have a more streamlined result

2. Avoid unnecessary words

Keep it short and simple. Instead of "what is the best laptop for gaming", simplify it to "best gaming laptop "

3. Combine operators

For a more refined search result, you can combine several operators together. 
For instance, 
site:org   intitle:internet  filetype:pdf

Explore Vertical and Specialized Search Engines 

Use the right tool for the job. 
General search engines like Google can be great, but since they index all web pages, they may be too broad for your needs. 
Try out industry specific search engines. 
Vertical search engines are those which focus on a specific type of content. 
If you want to find academic journals or research articles, you are better off searching on Google Scholar, PubMed and JSTOR
If you are looking for videos, YouTube is the place to go
Do you want to buy a product, read reviews or compare different brands, searching on Amazon or EBay would give you a more targeted result. 

Google has vertical engines such as Google books to find books and magazines and Google News for news only content.

By using vertical search engines, you can narrow your focus to the type of content you are interested in and avoid irrelevant results. 

Try Advanced Search 

Many popular search engines like Google, Bing, and Yanked have an advanced search that helps you narrow down results even more. 
For example, Google Advanced Search has a separate form-like page where you can filter your results by language, region, last update, etc. 
Use these features to save time and bypass irrelevant links.
Screenshot of Google Advanced Search




Other Tools You Can Use 

  • Wolfram Alpha provides factual answers and calculations instead of links. If your queries are statistics, maths or fact based, this may be useful. 
  • Archive.org and the Wayback Machine are great tools especially if you want to look up old versions of websites or pages that are currently not available 
Screenshot of Forbes.com January 13th 2005, on the Wayback Machine


Conclusion 

Finding information on the internet does not have to be slow and frustrating. By using search operators, advanced search features and exploring specialized search engines, you can cut through the maze and find exactly what you are looking for - quickly and efficiently. 

When next you search, try using these tips and see how much faster and accurate your results are. 

If you have any favorite search tips of your own, feel free to share them in the comments below. 

Till my next post, 
Stay Enlaitened! 
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