Use Operators to Properly Connect Keywords

We love tips and features which simplify or improve results. Anything which will permit you to cram more in less time or in the business world – improve productivity. You can spend hours searching for specific results in search engines, however, if you learn a few of these simple operator requests or tips you will drill down much quicker and find more relevant results.

Use these “commands” to improve your search results:

• Use Negative Keywords

If you’re seeing irrelevant results, identify a keyword that has nothing to do with what you’re looking for and make it your “negative keyword”. Simply add it to your search query with a minus symbol in front of it, for example if you were looking for the band Gossip, you would search for [gossip -celebrity] (without the brackets).

• Use Quotes

This is most commonly used to find an exact match. Since Google already uses the AND operator to connect single keywords per default, you won’t need quotes to find exact matches in most cases.

However, if you find that Google returns results with highlighted keywords that are spelled completely different from what you entered, try to put these single words into quotes and try again. This will prevent Google from returning more popular keywords that are only vaguely similar to your search term.

• Search Within a Specific Website

If you don’t want to search the entire internet, but instead a specific URL, this operator is of great help. Type [site:URL "your search query"], for example [site:http://domainprotege.com "website hosting"].

Filed under: Search Engine Optimization, google, search engine tips