The development of the Internet has allowed almost anyone to access practically all the information known to human civilization. A few keystrokes and mouse clicks can uncover virtually any compilation of information you want and have it delivered right to your desktop or laptop.
Google and other search engines like Yahoo! and MSN constantly update search algorithms to provide relevant search results to billions of Internet users around the world. But despite how good these search engines have gotten, a lot of Internet users still find searching the Internet to be a bit frustrating and overwhelming.
Having the scope of human knowledge at your fingertips doesn’t always result in finding what you want. For example, a Google search for the term “telecommunications” returns a whopping 109,000,000 results.
No one has the time or patience to examine so much information. Fortunately, there are simple search tricks you can use right now to quickly and easily find telecommunications (or other) information.
How to search using quotes, parentheses, positives and negatives
Google, MSN, and Yahoo have allowed “shortcuts” within their search engine structure to help users narrow down the search results they provide. Making internet search a more user-friendly experience requires that users know only a few.
The most basic of these shortcuts is the use of quotes, positive and negative. Used in conjunction with search phrases, these commands help you focus on relevant search results very quickly.
For example, suppose you want to search the Internet using the term: voip phone system. Entering those words into Google returns more than 45 million results. Placing quotation marks around these same words tells Google to search by “phrase”, not just individual words. Searching by phrase narrows this search to just over 1 million results.
Adding positives (+) and / or negatives (-) to a search term will help sharpen your search results. For example, if you want to find a Cisco VoIP phone system and not packet 8, you would type: “voip phone system” + cisco -packet 8
The minus sign (-) removes any search results that refer to package 8 and includes all search results that contain Cisco.
If you want to find Cisco OR packet 8 VoIP phone systems, it is better to use the command one or the other (parentheses) in your search. Note that all of these commands are completely interchangeable and can be used in conjunction with each other depending on how specific you would like the search results to be returned. A search for a VoIP phone system by Cisco or Packet8, but NO eBay listings would require entering this into Google: “voip phone system” (Cisco, packet 8) -ebay
These simple tricks will save you hours of time and considerable frustration searching for exactly what you want. The following are more ways to find specific file types and information from a single website, without even having to go to that website to search.
Finding Specific File Information Types
For the most part, Google returns search results in the form of web pages (html) or “sites” where the information resides. Although they are getting better at including file types other than html pages in their search results (for example, PDF, mpg, mp3, .doc, .xls), they are still years away from being intuitive enough to know exactly what type of files you are. searching when you enter a search phrase. The best way to help Google return what you want is to tell it what type of file you want.
For example, there are literally thousands of white papers written on almost every telecommunication topic imaginable. Providers spend a lot of money to develop comprehensive and informative technical reports on a variety of telecommunications topics, primarily for marketing purposes. However, most of these documents are hardly disguised sales pitches. Most of the time they are chalked filled with highly informative content. White papers are very useful when researching and / or learning about a specific telecommunications topic.
To find these available telecommunications technical documents with ease, simply enter the file type: pdf after your search phrase. If you are looking for a whitepaper on the topic “voip phone systems”, your Google search phrase would require the following: “voip phone systems” file type: PDF
Google returned 358 results at the time of writing this article.
Not specific enough?
Try entering allintitle: before your search term. This will instruct Google to only return PDF files that contain “voip phone systems” in the TITLE of the document. This search shows only six results.
Use this trick to find other types of files, such as Word files (doc), mp3 (mp3), and even Excel files (xls). A search for VoIP phone systems in Word document format would require: “voip phone systems” file type: doc An Excel spreadsheet file would require: “voip phone systems” file type: xls
How to search only on a website
Many websites contain search functions that allow visitors to search for topics only within that website. But what if you want to search for a topic on a specific site and the site does not contain search capabilities on it?
Use the site: command directly in the Google search fields.
For example, let’s say you want to quickly search mobiletracker.net (a massive popular cell phone blog) for anything that has to do with Nextel in the blog post title, but you don’t want anything to return with the word ” Motorola “in the title. This Google search would require entering the following search string:
allintitle: Nextel site: mobiletracker.net -Motorola for a total of 93 search results.
Let Google get closer to you with Google “alerts”
It is now possible to allow Google search to reach you by email when information is added to the Internet that contains a topic or phrase that interests you. Introducing: Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a free service that allows you to inform Google about a topic or phrase that you want to keep updated continuously. Google will then send you an email when something is added to the internet that contains that topic or search phrase.
You will need a Google account (free) to set up these alerts, but once you do, information about your topic will be sent to you at any time intervals you want: daily, “when it happens” or weekly. You can also specify where you want this information to come from: the web, news, blogs, videos, Google groups or a comprehensive search for each and every one of them.
When setting up your Google alerts, be very specific using the methods covered in this newsletter. Use the allintitle, quotes, positives, and negatives commands whenever possible. By doing so, you will not only reduce the number of emails you receive, but they will also be narrowly focused and on topic.
The Internet contains a wide range of telecommunications information waiting to be found and used to your advantage. Spend just a few minutes a day honing your internet search skills and the payoff will be worth it.