Topic: Google Search tips

[Rivers]

You might know this already but if you don't this is for you. This is not about the search box on weenie, it's about using Google search.

I thought it might be useful to post this after reading through the "shake sugaree" thread. Here's a tip when using Google to search for something on the web. The problem is the results you get are swamped by "noise" references, in this case to a Grateful Dead song, if your search term is just "sugaree".

To eliminate such noise you can tell google search to explicitly exclude it. To do this, type a dash (think of it as a minus sign), in front of words or phrases you want excluded from the results. In this example, the search should be for the following:

Code: [Select]

sugaree -"grateful dead"
Here are the cleaner results returned with "Grateful Dead" filtered-out: sugaree -"Grateful Dead"

To see the noisy search results returned without the filter click this: sugaree

Note that you can exclude multiple distractions, just add more -"exclude" commands on the end of your search terms. For example, the filter doesn't catch other noise items, so here's a cleaner result set: sugaree -"grateful dead" -"dead and company" -garcia -tedeschi -bakery -"ice cream" -jdarks -dylan

Still not totally clean but getting better. Sugaree is a very noisy search term. Just keep adding filters until the noise is bearable.

I hope this helps make google search a more useful tool for researching things that have mega distractions crowding-out the meat in your results.

[Rivers]

Oh while I'm at it, here's another "use case", where you only want results that contain a specific word or phrase. Use a plus sign instead of a minus in your filter. So for example you want sugaree references that mention Marty Robbins: sugaree +"Marty Robbins"