Using the Advanced Search Form

< Google Manual

WHAT! THERE’S A FORM FOR ALL THIS? NOW HE’S TELLING ME!

Sorry.

It was good to learn how to use them free-form in the search field, but for more complicated queries you can save time by going right to Google’s Advanced Search page. It has the power of most of the query operators built in to a more convenient interface for easier use.

To get to the Advanced Search page follow the link the right of the search box on the Google home page.

It lets you search for pages that:

• contain ALL the search terms you type in
• contain the exact phrase you type in
• contain at least one of the words you type in
• do NOT contain any of the words you type in
• are written in a certain language
• are created in a certain file format
• have been updated within a certain period of time
• contain numbers within a certain range
• are within a certain domain, or website
• don’t contain “adult” material

Find Results: The blue Find Results area is the heart of your search. You can fill in just one field or up to all four. These field relate to the basic operators we discussed a few chapters back.

Language: Use the Language selection to list only web sites in your language. This has been useful for me because for some reason I’m always coming up with German web pages in my searches.

File Format: The file format selection can include or exclude one file type.

Date: The Date option is extremely useful if you are looking for timely information (and who isn’t?). Let’s say that you are searching for the latest precautions on a medication—do you really want to risk reading a seven year old report on the subject? Set the Date selection to a recent time frame. The most recent time frame page you can specify is three months.

Occurrences: I really like this option that lets you select where the search terms must be located. There are several choices, but if you really need to find pages that are created in line with your search terms, asking to find the words in just the title will find the most relevant. (The title is not necessarily what you see on the header of the web site; it is what the web designer carefully crafted and placed in a “Meta” keyword in the “code” that tells the search engine what the site title is.)

All the choices relate directly to the advanced operators we discussed ina previous lesson. Read that page for details how each choice works. Anywhere on the page runs the query without any of the “where” advanced operators, in the title of the page is equivalent to allintitle, in the text of the page doesn’t have an equivalent, in the URL of the page is equivalent to allinurl, and in links to the page is equivalent to allinanchor.

Domain: The domain selection offers a way to do a search that either searches only within a particular site or avoids a particular site. This is equivalent to the insite: operator.

Safe Search: If you are going to search for anything other than porn, turning on the Safe Search is a good idea. This uses the preferences you set in the Search Preferences page.

Page Specific: The two options here mimic the related: and link: operators. Similar will list pages that Google feels are similar to the page you enter. Link will list pages that link to the page you enter.

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