NOTE: Internet searches are indicated by square brackets. Do not include square brackets in your searches.
Double quotes keep phrases together side by side. Sure, you can type [New Horizon] to search NASA's mission to Pluto but Google searches the letters, not concept. One paragraph may include "new" and another paragraph with "horizons" and these irrelevant pages will all be added to your results only to increase them. Some of these could land on page one. Why not try ["New Horizons"] instead?
Knowing the above, you can narrow searches down to types of websites or specific websites. Building on the above, to narrow searches to specific organizations, try the following:
["New Horizon" site:nasa.gov]
This searches the mission only on NASA's web pages. You can do with the main URL for any organization! Let's say you don't want NASA only. Let's say you want to see what universities are saying about New Horizon. In that case, try this:
["New Horizon" site:edu]
This only finds New Horizon on universities in the US. You could instead broaden this for international websites as well such as the following:
["New Horizons" site:ac.uk]
This will narrow your list to universities in England. You will need to check country codes for specific country URLs.
Let's say we are searching for web sites on Ancient Rome.
["Ancient Rome" 500 BC...500 AD]
Using our SITE parameter from earlier, you can narrow this down further.
["Ancient Rome" 500 BC...500 AD site:edu filetype:pdf]
This will let you find academic articles. Of course, be sure to use proper citations to acknowledge your source if you use anything in your assignments.
We can also use the same parameter to find cars in a price range.
["honda accord" $2000...$5000]
Be sure to look underneath the Google search box. To limit results by chronological timeframe, Click TOOLS, then click the Anytime dropdown button for more specific or custom time ranges.
Let's say you are working on your dissertation or serious project. You need to know the graduation rates of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. If you type that into a Google search, here is what you will get.
Let's try this instead using the tips above..
[Texas Oklahoma Arkansas Louisiana "graduation rates" site:ed.gov filetype:xslx]
First, there no "AND" needed between the states because Google automatically assumes it. Let's break what this search will do.
You could tweak this search. You could change the filetype to PPTX to find PowerPoint slides used by the US federal government. You could expand your results by doing SITE:GOV instead. This would search all US government websites for the above. The big difference that you will notice is that with searches like this, you won't be getting 500 million web pages to sort through.
Compare these results with the Google search listed above and you be the judge. You choose. Which has better results? Which search will save you the most time?
What the library hopes you begin to understand is that Google's value as a search tool is only as valuable as the operator who knows what they are doing. Parameters as taught here will help reduce the overall result numbers and will significantly increase the relevance of the results you do get. If you are going to use Google, the Library wants you to use it right!