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This article was co-authored by Tyrone Showers and by wikiHow staff writer, Megaera Lorenz, PhD. Tyrone Showers is a Technologist and the Co-owner of Taliferro Group, an IT consulting company based in Seattle, Washington. With over 35 years of professional experience, he specializes in API Design, e-Commerce, Operational Efficiency, and website development. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from DeVry Institute of Technology.
This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources.
This article has been viewed 211,904 times.
Are you having trouble finding the results you need from Google? As the most popular search engine, Google provides countless results with just a simple keyword. This can be a bit daunting to browse if you have a specific result in mind. In this article, which features advice from Technologist Tyrone Showers, we’ll show you how to use Google’s Advanced Search menu or special search operators to find exactly what you’re looking for, as well as a few tricks to get simple answers to basic queries without having to dig through pages of results.
Quick Steps
- Go to the www.google.com/advanced_search in a web browser.
- Fill in at least one field to make your search. Use the fields to include or exclude words, phrases, and/or numbers.[1]
- Narrow your search by inputting a language, region, website/domain, and more. Click "Advanced Search" to view results.
Steps
Using the Advanced Search Page
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Go to https://www.google.com/advanced_search in a web browser. You can use Google Chrome or another browser. You'll be taken to the Advanced Search page, where you can narrow down your results by filling in the fields.[2]- You don't have to fill out every single field, but you must fill out at least one. Your results will be narrower with more information.
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Fill in the fields underneath "Find pages with…". This is the first header on the page. Fill in at least one of these fields. Otherwise, you'll be redirected to a blank Google Search page.- all these words: Searches will contain all words in this field. This is the filter used in normal Google searches with the Google homepage.
- this exact word or phrase: Searches will contain the word or phrase without anything in between.
- any of these words: Searches will contain any of the words provided, with and without anything in between.
- none of these words: Searches will exclude this word. According to technology expert Tyrone Showers, excluding unwanted words is one of the easiest ways to narrow down your search results and get the answers you really want.[3]
- numbers ranging from/to: Searches will include these numbers or number range.
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Fill in the fields underneath "Then narrow your results by…". This is optional, though it provides more refined search results. Select the drop-down menu to view the options.- language: Searches will contain this language.
- region: Searches will contain this location/region.
- last update: Searches will contain results in this time frame.
- site or domain: Enter a website to search within that website.
- terms appearing: Select a location for your terms to appear (such as in the page text, the title, or the URL).
- file type: Select a format, if searching for a file.
- usage rights: Select the terms of use for files or photos in the search results.
