Secret Tips For… Google Search

Filter search results by date and country, exclude keywords, roll a dice and search a single site

Search by date

Searching on Google is generally straightforward, but there are ways to filter the search engine if you want more precise results. For example, Google delivers results that it thinks are most relevant, but they can often date from some time ago and therefore be no longer useful. If you want results from just the current year, or you’re searching for a particular article and know roughly when it was published, you can filter the search results accordingly.

As an example, search for Windows 10 in Google. Once you see the results, click ‘Search tools’ at the top, then the ‘Any time’ dropdown menu and select ‘Custom range’ (see screenshot below left). In the pop-up box enter a start and end date and Google will only display results published within that timeframe. Other options in the dropdown menu include ‘Past hour’, ‘Past 24 hours’, ‘Past week’, ‘Past month’ and ‘Past year’.

Limit results to the UK

Filtering search results by country is another way to narrow your search. You might, for example, enter the search term historical facts about Manchester to find out about the city’s past. To make sure your results don’t include websites about Manchester, New Hampshire in the US, click Tools and select ‘Country: the UK’ from the ‘Any country’ dropdown menu.

Focus your search on one site

Many websites have their own search tool, but they can be poor. Thankfully, you can use Google’s Site Search instead. Use the format ‘site:<domain name>’ in your search term to search on just one site (<domain name> is the URL after ‘www.’). For example, site:bbc.co.uk bake off will search the BBC for mentions of The Great British Bake Off (see screenshot above right).

Exclude words from your results

If your search results are overwhelmed with information you’re not interested in, you can exclude certain words by using the minus (‘-’) symbol in your search term. This means everything after the ‘-’ will be excluded from the search results. For example, if you enter jaguar speed -car Google will only show you results for how fast the big cat can run and will leave out anything to do with Jaguar’s prowess in the motoring industry.

Find similar websites

If you’ve got a favourite website and want to find similar sites, Google has a search phrase to help. Type related:<domain name> (where <domain name> is the web address of one website minus the ‘www.’ prefix). For example, typing related:manutd.com brings up links to the home pages of other Premier League football clubs. The related keyword is a powerful tool that can easily help you find other websites.

Roll the dice

Google can even help if you want to play a board game, but have misplaced your dice. Just type roll a die into the search bar, and Google will roll a virtual die for you, showing you the results on screen. Click ‘Roll it’ to throw it again.