Search

Web Searching

Search engine use:

Google Guide and shortcuts for specific info, such as people, search-by-number, etc.
Advanced operators
Google to the max
site: includes/excludes certain domains -- example site:cornell.edu and its negation -site:cornell.edu which will exclude a site.
filetype: includes/excludes certain file types -- example filetype:pdf the type can be ps, pdf, doc, xls, ppt, rtf The negation will exclude a filetype -- example -filetype:pdf
define: will return a definition -- example define:neurobiology
allintitle: searches only in parts of the web page -- example allintitle: Bruce Land other specifiers are allintext:, allinurl:, allinanchor:
related: pages related to the target page -- example related:instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/
link: pages which link the target page -- example link:instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/
+ sign forces a word to be used -- example +LA times. Need this because LA is "the" in Spanish, which is automatically excluded.
- sign forces a word NOT to be used -- example dolphins -football
~ sign enables synonyms -- ~inexpensive matches "inexpensive," "cheap," "affordable," and "low cost"
... elipsis allows a numeric range search -- example 123...999.
It is instructive to occasionally search for your own credit card number or SSN using this feature.
" " quotes cause a literal search. Try quote/unquote "to be or not to be"

Unquoted string is the same as Google's quoted string
Use explicit AND/OR logic to combine words
The asterisk (*), question mark (?), and dollar sign ($) are called wildcards because they can be included in a search term to represent unknown characters. The asterisk (*) represents any group of characters, including no characters. The question mark (?) represents any single character. The dollar sign ($) represents one character or no characters.

WebCrawler and DogPile Both combine searches from several search engines.

WaybackMachine Archived web pages from past years.

Alexa Web traffic ratings