6 tips to refine your Google search

Google may be an old and widely used search engine, but you may not be using it to its full potential. Tips and tricks for Google can help users find specific information that they are looking for. In a thread on Twitter, Chris Hladczuk detailed unique tips for searching on Google.

Using quotation marks

If you use quotation marks in your Google search, the engine will provide the exact results that you may be looking for. With quotation marks, you may be able to find the source of the quote.

Using dashes to exclude words from search

To find specific information that will not include an aspect of the information you seek, you can add the keywords you need the search results to exclude by adding dashes.

Get a stock quote

According to the tweet, by typing in a company's stock ticker, you can find the price of the stock immediately. You can just type in 'APPL' to find out the last trading price for Apple.

Using tilde to find synonyms

By using tilde, search results will display options that are more specific and will include more results synonymous to what you may be looking for. If you type in '~cheap shoes' you will get results that will include results for affordable and inexpensive shoes, hence widening the search range.

Using two periods

Adding two periods in a search query will provide results within a specific range. This trick is noted to be, better in theory than in practice.

Searching by File type or domain

You can add file type and specify a domain, if you're looking for results in particular formats like jpg, or looking for results in a specific domain. You can add it into the search engine in 'filetype: pdf' or for specific domains, adding 'site:' before it.