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Hey all,

have you ever tried to search something on Google, Bing, Yahoo, or whatever search engine you prefer to use and a bunch of results pop up that you don't want or weren't looking for and the only "Suggestion" you have are not even related to the topic? Well, for those of you that have difficulty searching for something particular such as song lyrics, a person, or just about anything, this guide will tell you the important aspects you should know that not a lot of people really know about!

Now, it's not really that much of Rocket Science to know how to search something on the Internet, but at the same time, no one really teaches you "how to search" properly and get the best results.

Here are some of the things I will be covering today:

• Advanced Tips
  
• Time Saving Tricks, and
  
• New answer-finding tools
  

So lets get started.

Sometimes, you might here the word "Query," but don't let that frighten you, it's just another word for a question, but that's just fancy dancy talk right dare.

When you type in something into Google such as "Will Smith" for example, you get results, and this is known as "Organic Results."

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These results are found by a number of different data that Google stores in their servers and computers. Think of it like a "Mother Ship." When you type something into Google, it goes to the Mother Ship and asks, what does this person want to find? Afterwards, the Mother ship reports back and says, "Well, they probably want ______" that's how you get the suggestions when you're typing something into Google. However, it just does it at a super fast rate, but really, it going all the way to Googles servers and asking that question every time when you type something in.

Here's something else a lot of people don't know or don't see about Google.

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First off, you have the option to click "Cached." What is Cache? Cache is another word for stored. What this does is take you to a cached (or stored) version of that website on Google's Servers. The Cached version might be almost identical to the real page, but it might be a little different depending on when the "Google Bot" went to that website.

Google takes screen shots of websites all the time and stores them on their servers. This is what that "Google Bot" is doing when you see it online sometimes on other websites. It's taking screen shots of the page. Google does this because it takes WAY to long to search the entire web, real time. This is what one of their data centers kinda looks like:

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It stores them like an Index in the back of a book pretty much. What would you rather do? Try to find what you're looking for in an encyclopedia without using an Index, or use an Index?

How does this have anything to do with searching? Well, I bring this up to remind you that it's just like searching a giant Index in a huge book.

Next up, you have the "Similar" button, and you can probably guess what that will do, but if you don't know, what it does is, it takes you to similar results related to that particular link. Like if you type in something wrong and you see what you where looking for, but it's not quite what you want, you can click the similar button.

Lastly, you have the "Share" option, and that's if you see something cool and you want to share it with your family and/or friends on a social network like Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Choosing Search Terms

First and for most. Never type in a full question into a search engine. You're likely to get lost, and never find your results. For example, instead of typing "How old is Will Smith?" type in "Will Smith's age" or "Will Smith's Birthday" Here are the differences.

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See how much easier that was? The other search just takes you to a bunch of links, and the Index search came right up and the other search takes you to a bunch of stuff like Will's son.

How the Experts Search

• Use Quotes
  
• Tap into sites with site:
  
• Use the * Symbol for missing words
  

What does this all mean?

Using Quotes

Using a quote (") is digging into a search. You're pretty much telling the search engine, that "this word" is the key word.

Tap into sites with site:

This is when you want to search a .gov or .edu site. You're telling the search engine to only show me links of a .gov site. Check it out.

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As you can see, it only showed me .gov sites, mostly NASA in this case.

Use the * Symbol for missing words

Now this is great for searching song lyrics. The * symbol is telling the search engine "Hey, lets pretend like their's a word/phrase here that I don't know" For example:

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As you can see, it came up with some lyrics. I just used those as an example, but you get the idea.

So in conclusion, we've learned that searching the web is just like a big Index in the back of a book and how to use key words to your advantage when searching. I hope this article helped some of you guys out.

Also, please don't troll. Just trying to help the people that weren't aware about these cool features.

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Didnt Need This In The Way Of Learning To Search Just Was A Interesting Read

Great article. Another thing that comes in handy when searching is -

IE: -Torrents

Using the minus sign will tell google that you do not want that to be included in your search.

site: is also another great way to search google. It let's you search specifically for files on whatever site you need. For example

site: nextgenupdate.com red dead redemption

it will bring up everything about red dead redemption on this site.

Very nice detailed thread :y:
Nice job

Thanks guys! <3

Thanks for putting this together and posting. A few key things I didn't know about at all and will save me alot of sifting through results in future searches.

I learn this years ago but its always good to refresh .

Nice, clean thread -Luke :y:

Very nice thread, maybe you should make one on how to use the search function on NGU next because people never use it :dumb:

^_^ google a powerful tool most don't know how to use. Little refresh remember being told this years ago.

Yep, this has been out for quite a while, but I just posted it for people that might be new to the Internet on NGU.