4 ways to quickly and correctly find any answer on the Internet (Topic)

It's no secret that sooner or later every person is faced with questions that cannot be answered. A century ago, the decision was difficult: it was necessary either to read a ton of books, or find a person who possesses the necessary information. Fortunately, this era has passed, and now, with the help of the Internet, everyone can find what they need with minimal effort and time. This article will dispel the "fog of war" over the mystery of global network search, making it easier and more convenient for users. Happy reading!

So, way number 1: use different search engines

Search engines can often produce very conflicting results. For example, Google, by default, focuses on previous searches and the user's current location, thereby giving out the most "suitable" (according to the search engine) links.

Such a result can be both useful (for example, returning a cafe with a typical name not anywhere in Canada, but on a nearby street), or not very useful (if the search was aimed specifically at a cafe in Canada , and no location was specified).

Of course, you can disable this behavior of the search engine, but first you need to know about the existence of such a possibility.

Another example is Yandex. Well suited for searching for information about a business, pictures on the Internet, any materials on USA-language resources. But for foreign sources, it is already much less suitable than the above-mentioned Google.

DuckDuckGo. The main advantage over Google and Yandex is that search results do not depend on previous queries, country or geographic location (the search engine does not store this data, thus, it is also the most anonymous search engine in the world).

In this search engine, you can search both in all regions of the world, and in any specific country, setting up the search with one move of the button located right below the search menu.

For those who fell in love with one of the systems, but there is no desire to look for something new and is not expected, we recommend that you find out if it has highly specialized search tools (for example, the Google Scholar tool, which allows you to search only in online repositories of scientific centers, universities, academic publishing houses).

Method number 2: explore more links

Often, users either open the first links they come across, or close the search engine, abandoning the idea of at least finding something. Instead, to find something useful, it is advisable to open more sites (we recommend doing this in separate tabs) and view the link titles on multiple pages.

What does it do? Firstly, viewing several sources significantly increases the chance of finding something, and secondly, looking at the titles of the links that are issued, it is easy to immediately filter out some of the resources that do not fit the search topic.

Method number 3: accurately construct the query

A correctly formulated query allows you to more accurately find anything. It sounds like advice from the "captain of the obvious", however, for a precisely asked question, there is a better chance of getting an equally accurate answer, which noticeably speeds up searches on the Internet.

Note that sometimes it is worth trying several variants of queries, since sometimes even minor changes (adding words, shortening the query, rearranging words in places) can greatly change the search results.

Method number 4: use search operators

Using search operators (often referred to as "modifiers" on the Internet) is the most "tasty" part of the query building technique, allowing you to get the most accurate results.

Such high performance is achieved due to the ability to limit (or expand) the search area by specific domains, languages, file types, time of site changes, etc.

Let's consider some of the search operators that make the search comfortable and convenient for the user.

Part 1: modifiers common to most search engines (Yandex, Google, etc.)

It is worth noting that some search engines (for example, Google) may ignore the entered operators if they think that there are better results, while others (for example, Yandex) follow the operators used exactly.

Operators "+" and "-". Useful for searching documents that must contain (or must be absent) the specified words. You can use several operators in one query, both "plus" and "minus". There is no space after the "minus" or "plus" operator. Example: "Middle Ages - Wikipedia".

Operator "" (search by quote content). In this case, the search engine will search for links with an exact match to the words specified in the quotes. You can set it several times within the same request, and also add "plus" or "minus" to further refine the request (for example, remove the link to "Wikipedia", as in the above example).

OR operator. Equivalent values: OR, pipe (|). Please note that this operator is always written in capital letters.

In this case, the search engine selects results containing any of the words associated with this operator, in other words, several options for the required information. Example: “Cats are bald | short-haired.

Part 2: Google Search Modifiers

List of operators:

1) ".." ("two dots"). Used to find ranges between numbers. For example, it can be used to search for an item with the best price by specifying the minimum and maximum prices of the intended item before and after the points. The numbers before and after the dots are put without spaces;

2) "@". Used to search for data from various social networks such as Twitter or Instagram;

3) "#". Allows you to search by hashtags;

4) "~" ("tilde"). Used to find documents with specified words or their synonyms;

5) "*". It is used to indicate missing or unknown words in the query, put in place of the search word. Example: "Park * period";

6) "site:". Used to search for a specified site or domain;

7) "link:". Searches for pages with links to the selected site;

8) "related:". It selects pages that are similar in content to the compared resource;

9) "info:". Used to retrieve information about a web address, including links to cached pages, similar sites, pages with links to a site of the user, and the like;

10) "cache:". Used to view the latest cached version of the selected electronic resource;

11) "filetype:". Used to search for the selected file type, can be used with other search modifiers;

12) "movie:". Used to find information about the selected movie or clip;

13) "daterange:". Used to find pages indexed by Google for a user-defined period of time;

14) "allintitle:". Searches for pages where the query words are in the title;

15) "intitle:". Almost the same, but part of the request can be contained in other parts of the page;

16) "allinurl:". It is used to find sites containing all the words mentioned in the url;

17) "inurl:". Searches for sites containing the word mentioned in a user-selected url;

18) "allintext:". Implements a search for a specific text;

19) "intext:". Searches for a specific word from the selected text;

20) "define:". Searches for sites that contain the definition of the selected word or expression.

Part 3: Bing Search Engine Modifiers

List of operators:

1) "contains:". Used to display results from sites that contain links to selected file types;

2) "ip:". Allows you to search for sites hosted on a specific IP-address;

3) "ext:". Demonstrates only web addresses that contain a user-specified extension;

4) "loc:". Searches for sites from a specific country or region;

5) "url:". When used in a search engine, Bing checks to see if a user-specified site has been indexed.

Part 4: modifiers used by Yandex search engine

List of operators:

1) "!" ("Exclamation point"). Searches for documents containing a word or expression in a user-specified form;

2) "!!". Searches for resources containing the selected words or phrases in any form and case;

3) "&". Allows you to search for sites containing the specified words in one sentence;

4) "& &". Searches for sites containing the selected words within one page of a site or document;

5) "()" ("brackets"). It is used to form complex queries. Any other operators and queries can be inside the brackets;

6) "title:". Searches by site titles;

7) "url:". Searches the user-selected url;

8) "site:". Searches all pages, sections and domains of the site;

9) "domain:". Implements search in all pages and sections located on the specified domain;

10) "mime:". Searches documents that match the specified file type;

11) "lang:". Searches for sites and pages in the selected language;

12) "date:". Searches sites and pages by the date of the last change. In this case, it is imperative to indicate the year of change, the day and month can be replaced with a *;

13) "cat:". Implements a search for sites and pages of sites registered in the Yandex catalog, whose subject heading or region matches the parameters specified by the user;

14) "Intext". Searches for sites and documents, the text of which completely contains words from the search query, thus, the search is carried out in the text of sites, and not in meta tags or name;

15) "image". Searches for links that include images that match the name entered by the user;

16) "Linkmus". Searches for pages that include links to music files specified by the user;

17) "Inlink". Searches for links in the text of the site;

18) "Linkint". Implements a search for links within a site for a user-specified document;

19) "Anchorint". Searches for documents in the text of links to internal documents of the site, which contain the material necessary for the user;

20) "idate". Searches documents by the selected indexing date.

Part 5: Modifiers Used by the DuckDuckGo Search Engine

List of operators:

1) "images". It is used when it is necessary to search by images;

2) "news". Searches for news with a user-specified name;

3) "map". Lets you display a user-defined query on OpenStreetMap pages;

4) "site:". Search on the pages of a site specified by the user;

5) "f:". Search for files (the file type is specified by the user in the request);

6) "ip". Displays information about the user's IP address;

7) "@". Search for information on social networks;

8) "validate". Helps determine the relevance of an email or site address;

9) "shorten". Used to generate short links for sites or articles;

10) "password". Used to generate passwords of user-specified length;

11) "countdown". Allows you to set the timer at the desired time.

Another feature of DuckDuckGo is "! Bangs" - a special type of queries that allow you to search for information immediately on certain sites without leaving the search engine. Requests are formatted as short names starting with the "!" Character.

Today DuckDuckGo uses 10,911 variants of such sites, recorded in a special section of DuckDuckGo and generating short links for advanced searches. Moreover, users can independently add sites to the search engine.

Examples of such specialized operators that only work in DuckDuckGo:

1) "! W" - Searches Wikipedia. Finds pages in both USA and other languages. Usage example: "Wicca! W" will send the user directly to a page containing the search term "Wicca";

2) "! yt" - used to search YouTube;

3) "! lh" - searches the pages of the Lifehacker;

4) "! yaw" - searches on the resource "Yandex.Weather";

5) "! pdf" - searches for resources containing a user-selected pdf name;

6) "! gphotos" - Finds pictures and images in the Google photo database;

7) "! flickr" - searches for photos on Flickr;

8) "! pixiv" - searches by the name or type of art posted on the Pixiv pages;

9) "! tr" - translates the phrase into Google Translate (without specifying the language);

10) "! gten" - generates translation of the phrase into English;

11) "! gtru" - offers a translation of the phrase into USA;

12) "! inbox" - searches the gmail mailbox;

13) "! tw" - searches the vastness of the social network Twitter;

14) "! vk" - generates a search in the social network "Vkontakte";

15) "! p" - used to search for art or anything else on Pinterest;

16) "! youtube2mp3" - allows you to directly convert YouTube videos to mp3 format;

17) "! similarweb" - used to check website traffic;

18) "! 2gis" - searches directly on 2GIS maps;

19) "! map" - used for searching on Goggle Map;

20) "! mih" - searches maps from the Mum I'm Here service;

21) "! med" - searches Medium pages.

It is rather pointless to list all the sites included in the DuckDuckGo list (remember the 10,911 resources added to the search engine in this way), but every user will surely find something convenient for himself.

PS It is not so important which search engine a user uses, the most important thing is to do it correctly, not forgetting about the additional features presented in this article. These 4 ways should make life much easier for any person, so we advise you to use the "power of search" to the fullest. Good luck!

The Topic of Article: 4 ways to quickly and correctly find any answer on the Internet.
Author: Jake Pinkman