This
week, we discuss more tips that can get you amazingly
better search result.
Remove
Unwanted pages using - symbol
We discussed forced search using
+ symbol last week. The + symbol preceding a search
word forces search engine to look for only those
pages that have that search word. (e.g. +garments
+buyer)
You can use the - symbol to do the
exact opposite - filter out unwanted pages. A
- symbol preceding a search word forces the search
engine TO REMOVE all pages having that particular
search word.
For example, if you are looking for
buyers but not agents, the search expression may
be as follows:
+buyer
-agent
The - symbol is very helpful in weeding
out unwanted pages from search result and focus
on interest area only.
Some more examples of - symbol
SAARC -India (all countries in South
Asia except India)
windows +98 -3.1 (looking for pages
on Windows 98 only)
garments -fabrics (focussing on garments
only)
Join Multiple
Words using Quotation Marks
Well, after learning how to add and
subtract terms, the next logical step should be
multiplication !
As in mathematics, multiplying terms
through a "phrase search" can be a much better
way to get the answers you are looking for.
When you are looking for a concept
made up of more than one word or a phrase - searching
for the phrase provides much more focussed result
than sum total of individual words.
For example, if you are looking for
Buying Agents, you may search by any of the following
ways:
1. +buying +agent
2. +'buying agent'
The search result will be vastly
different for phrase search. We actually searched
two top Search engines and see the difference
in result below:
Search Expression: +buying +agent
AltaVista : 4,076,558 pages
Google : 8,06,000 pages
Search Expression: 'buying agent'
(exact phrase in advanced search)
AltaVista : 4613 pages
Google : 18000 pages
So if you know exactly what you want
- use phrase search. There is no better alternative.
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