The easiest way to search for information electronically is to enter a couple of keywords into the search box of the resource and see what type of results you get. This strategy, however, will often result in too few, too many, or irrelevant results.

In order to retrieve the most relevant results, you will need to construct a search string.  A search string is a combination of keywords, truncation symbols, and boolean operators you enter into the search box of an electronic library resource or an Internet search engine.

A search strategy is an organized structure of key terms used to search a database. The search strategy combines the key concepts of your search question in order to retrieve accurate results. Your search strategy will account for all: possible search terms. keywords and phrases.

• What are the 3 Steps to Creating a Search Strategy?
• What are the 4 Search Strategies?
• How do you Create a Search Strategy for a Systematic Review?
• What is Successful Search Strategy?
• Why is Search Strategy Important?
• What are the Types of Search Techniques?
• How do you Present a Literature Search Strategy?
• What is a Comprehensive Search Strategy?
• What is Boolean Search Strategy?
• What are the Five Basic Steps Using Search Engine?
• How Many Types of Search are There?
• What are the Two Ways to Search for Information?

What are the 3 Steps to Creating a Search Strategy?

1. Decide where to search 

It’s important to come up with a comprehensive list of sources to search so that you don’t miss anything potentially relevant. In clinical medicine, your first stop will likely be the databases MEDLINE, Embase, and CENTRAL. Depending on the subject of the review, it might also be appropriate to run the search in databases that cover specific geographical regions or specialist areas, such as traditional Chinese medicine.

Read Also: Actionable Guide on Online Search Marketing

In addition to these databases, you’ll also search for grey literature (essentially, research that was not published in journals). That’s because your search of bibliographic databases will not find relevant information if it is part of, for example:

• a trials register
• a study that is ongoing
• a thesis or dissertation
• a conference abstract.

Over-reliance on published data introduces bias in favour of positive results. Studies with positive results are more likely to be submitted to journals, published in journals, and therefore indexed in databases. This is publication bias and systematic reviews seek to minimise its effects by searching for grey literature.

2. Write and refine the search 

Search terms are derived from key concepts in the review question and from the inclusion and exclusion criteria that are specified in the protocol or research plan.

• Keywords 

Keywords will be searched for in the title or abstract of the records in the database. They are often truncated (for example, a search for therap* to find therapy, therapies, therapist). They might also use wildcards to allow for spelling variants and plurals (for example, wom#n to find woman and women). The symbols used to perform truncation and wildcard searches vary by database.

• Index terms 

Using index terms such as MeSH and Emtree in a search can improve its performance. Indexers with subject area expertise work through databases and tag each record with subject terms from a prespecified controlled vocabulary.

This indexing can save review teams a lot of time that would otherwise be spent sifting through irrelevant records. Using index terms in your search, for example, can help you find the records that are actually about the topic of interest (tagged with the index term) but ignore those that contain only a brief mention of it (not tagged with the index term).

Indexers assign terms based on a careful read of each study, rather than whether or not the study contains certain words. So the index terms enable the retrieval of relevant records that cannot be captured by a simple search for the keyword or phrase.

• Use a combination

Relying solely on index terms is not advisable. Doing so could miss a relevant record that for some reason (indexer’s judgment, time lag between a record being listed in a database and being indexed) has not been tagged with an index term that would enable you to retrieve it. Good search strategies include both index terms and keywords.

3. Manage the search results 

Search results from multiple databases can be collated in a single spreadsheet for screening. To benefit from process efficiencies, time-saving and easy collaboration with your team, you can import search results into a specialist tool such as Covidence.

A key benefit of Covidence is that you can track decisions made about the inclusion or exclusion of studies in a simple workflow and resolve conflicting decisions quickly and transparently. Covidence currently supports three formats for file imports of search results:

• EndNote XML
• PubMed text format
• RIS text format

What are the 4 Search Strategies?

Choose search terms

Concepts can be expressed in different ways eg “self-esteem” might be referred to as “self-worth”. Your aim is to consider each of your concepts and come up with a list of the different ways they could be expressed.

To find alternative keywords or phrases for your concepts try the following:

• Use a thesaurus to identify synonyms.
• Search for your concepts on a search engine like Google Scholar, scanning the results for alternative words and phrases.
• Examine relevant abstracts or articles for alternative words, phrases and subject headings (if the database uses subject headings).

When you’ve done this, you should have lists of words and phrases for each concept.

As you search and scan articles and abstracts, you may discover different key terms to enhance your search strategy.

Using truncation and wildcards can save you time and effort by finding alternative keywords.

Search with keywords

Keywords are free text words and phrases. Database search strategies use a combination of free text and subject headings (where applicable).

A keyword search usually looks for your search terms in the title and abstract of a reference. You may wish to search in title fields only if you want a small number of specific results.

Some databases will find the exact word or phrase, so make sure your spelling is accurate or you will miss references.

Search for the exact phrase

If you want words to appear next to each other in an exact phrase, use quotation marks, eg “self-esteem”.

Phrase searching decreases the number of results you get and makes your results more relevant. Most databases allow you to search for phrases but check the database guide if you are unsure.

Truncation and wildcard searches

You can use truncated and wildcard searches to find variations of your search term. Truncation is useful for finding singular and plural forms of words and variant endings.

Many databases use an asterisk (*) as their truncation symbol. Check the database help section if you are not sure which symbol to use. For example, “therap*” will find therapy, therapies, therapist or therapists. A wildcard finds variant spellings of words. Use it to search for a single character or no character.

Check the database help section to see which symbol to use as a wildcard.

Wildcards are useful for finding British and American spellings, for example: “behavio?r” in Medline will find both behaviour and behavior.

There are sometimes different symbols to find a variable single character. For example, in the Medline database, “wom#n” will find woman and also women.

How do you Create a Search Strategy for a Systematic Review?

1. Determine a clear and focused question

A systematic search can best be applied to a well-defined and precise research or clinical question. Questions that are too broad or too vague cannot be answered easily in a systematic way and will generally result in an overwhelming number of search results. On the other hand, a question that is too specific will result into too few or even zero search results. Various papers describe this process in more detail.

2. Describe the articles that can answer the question

Although not all clinical or research questions can be answered in the literature, the next step is to presume that the answer can indeed be found in published studies. A good starting point for a search is hypothesizing what the research that can answer the question would look like. These hypothetical (when possible, combined with known) articles can be used as guidance for constructing the search strategy.

3. Decide which key concepts address the different elements of the question

Key concepts are the topics or components that the desired articles should address, such as diseases or conditions, actions, substances, settings, domains (e.g., therapy, diagnosis, etiology), or study types. Key concepts from the research question can be grouped to create elements in the search strategy.

Elements in a search strategy do not necessarily follow the patient, intervention, comparison, outcome (PICO) structure or any other related structure. Using the PICO or another similar framework as guidance can be helpful to consider, especially in the inclusion and exclusion review stage of the SR, but this is not necessary for good search strategy development. Sometimes concepts from different parts of the PICO structure can be grouped together into one search element, such as when the desired outcome is frequently described in a certain study type.

4. Decide which elements should be used for the best results

Not all elements of a research question should necessarily be used in the search strategy. Some elements are less important than others or may unnecessarily complicate or restrict a search strategy. Adding an element to a search strategy increases the chance of missing relevant references. Therefore, the number of elements in a search strategy should remain as low as possible to optimize recall.

5. Choose an appropriate database and interface to start with

Important factors for choosing databases to use are the coverage and the presence of a thesaurus. For medically oriented searches, the coverage and recall of Embase, which includes the MEDLINE database, are superior to those of MEDLINE. Each of these two databases has its own thesaurus with its own unique definitions and structure.

Because of the complexity of the Embase thesaurus, Emtree, which contains much more specific thesaurus terms than the MEDLINE Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus, translation from Emtree to MeSH is easier than the other way around. Therefore, we recommend starting in Embase.

MEDLINE and Embase are available through many different vendors and interfaces. The choice of an interface and primary database is often determined by the searcher’s accessibility. For our method, an interface that allows searching with proximity operators is desirable, and full functionality of the thesaurus, including an explosion of narrower terms, is crucial. We recommend developing a personal workflow that always starts with one specific database and interface.

6. Document the search process in a text document

We advise designing and creating the complete search strategies in a log document, instead of directly in the database itself, to register the steps taken and to make searches accountable and reproducible. The developed search strategies can be copied and pasted into the desired databases from the log document.

This way, the searcher is in control of the whole process. Any change to the search strategy should be done in the log document, assuring that the search strategy in the log is always the most recent.

7. Identify appropriate index terms in the thesaurus of the first database

Searches should start by identifying appropriate thesaurus terms for the desired elements. The thesaurus of the database is searched for matching index terms for each key concept. We advise restricting the initial terms to the most important and most relevant terms.

Later in the process, more general terms can be added in the optimization process, in which the effect on the number of hits, and thus the desirability of adding these terms, can be evaluated more easily.

Several factors can complicate the identification of thesaurus terms. Sometimes, one thesaurus term is found that exactly describes a specific element. In contrast, especially in more general elements, multiple thesaurus terms can be found to describe one element. If no relevant thesaurus terms have been found for an element, free-text terms can be used, and possible thesaurus terms found in the resulting references can be added later

What is Successful Search Strategy?

STEP	Why?	How?	Example
Step 1: Identify key concepts	Key concepts from your research question are the most effective search terms to quickly locate relevant sources.	Underline key nouns from your research question (for example, people, places, time periods, issues).	Assess the impact social media has had on recent outbreaks of civil unrest.
Step 2: Identify alternative search terms	To find everything relevant to your topic in a database.	Brainstorm alternatives (like synonyms, related terms, or alternative spellings) for your key concepts. These will be used as search terms.	Key concept 1: Social media Social network(s) Social networking Twitter Key concept 2: Civil unrest Conflict Revolution Riot Rioting
Step 3: Consider using limiters (available in a library database)	In order to focus on articles that are appropriate for your assignment.	Choose limiters in a library database that are relevant to your research needs.	Peer-reviewed articles Published in the last 5 years
Step 4: Combine your search terms	In order to get more focused results, use Boolean operators (and, or) as well as the wildcard* to combine key concepts.	And: Combines key concepts together to find articles that contain both concepts. Or: Combine alternative search terms for the same concept to find articles that contain either term. Wildcard*: Finds variations in spelling, prefixes, and suffixes (riot* will find riot, riots, rioting) Phrase search ” “: enter search terms made up of multiple words in quotation marks to preserve word order (“social media” will look for these two words side by side)	(“social media” OR “social network*” OR twitter OR facebook) AND (“civil unrest” OR conflict OR revolution OR riot*)
Step 5: Review your search results	Check if articles are appropriate for your assignment to ensure you find the right information to write a high quality paper.	Check if you articles are: Relevant to your topic and discipline Peer-reviewed Published in the last 5 years
Step 6: Adjust your strategy	If you don’t find relevant articles, change your search strategy.	Too few articles? Try… Brainstorming more/better alternative search terms Deleting the least relevant term from your search (if you have multiple terms) Using the wildcard* Too many articles? Try… More keywords (example: focus on a country/region, time periods, or group of people)	Too few articles? Incorporate examples of other social media platforms, e.g. Facebook Expand your topic beyond social media to look at the impact of the Internet on civil unrest Too many articles? Focus on one social media platform Look for articles on specific instances of unrest Narrow your focus to a particular country that experienced a revolution

Why is Search Strategy Important?

The goal of a systematic review is the complete and unbiased identification of relevant studies. Errors in electronic database search strategies can impact the recall (sensitivity) of the search, leading to missed research and incomplete conclusions. Sampson et al. sought to identify the elements of a systematic review search strategy associated with accuracy and completeness.

Based on a thorough review of the literature, these authors identified the search errors that have the greatest impact on recall: errors in the conceptualization of the search, logical operator errors, missed index terms, spelling errors, and errors in adapting search syntaxes for different database structures. To detect such errors, the search strategy needs to be made completely transparent to readers.

Conducting a systematic review starts with the articulation of a clear research question. Next, a study protocol is written that defines inclusion and exclusion criteria to guide the search and help reduce bias in the selection process. Working at times closely with an experienced searcher, reviewers create a strategy to comprehensively identify and retrieve relevant research on a topic.

The search strategy lists the databases to search and articulates the complete set of terms and Boolean logic combinations to use. The search is then adapted to match the specific structure of each database. Comprehensive searching of electronic databases rarely retrieves all the pertinent literature and should be supplemented by checking the reference lists on relevant search results.

Publication bias, the recognized tendency for negative results to be published less frequently, should be addressed through additional searching of the gray literature. The goal of this core portion of the systematic review method is to assure that the highest quality evidence available on the topic is included in the review.

What are the Types of Search Techniques?

When searching for materials in electronic resources and databases, it’s a good idea to use effective searching techniques to get the most out of your time and efforts. You don’t want to waste your time gathering a bunch of irrelevant information that you can’t use in your paper. Use these search strategies to help you find useful information quickly and effectively.

Find out more about these techniques below:

Keyword Searching

Use a keyword search to search all parts of a source for the words you enter in the search box. This type of searching uses “natural language” and is one you’re probably already familiar with–you simply enter words or phrases into a search box that you think are relevant to your topic. Click on the “Keyword Searching” page for more information. 

Boolean Searching

Boolean searching is a search technique that uses Boolean operators to help bring back search results faster and with more precision. The most common Boolean operators are AND, OR, and NOT. These are logic-based words that help search engines narrow down or broaden search results. Click on the “Boolean Searching” page for more information. 

Subject Searching

Within a database or online catalog, subject searching allows you to search by categories, which are found in the subject field of an item record. Subject terms are pre-defined and used for all items within a database or source that relate to that term. Click on the “Subject Searching” page for more information. 

Limiters

Many databases allow users to limit their search results by certain criteria. These options are often located somewhere on the database search page or results list as drop down menus or check boxes. Some common and useful limiters include date of publication, material type, full text, and more. Click on the “Limiters” page for more information. 

Phrase Searching

When you search for a phrase like corporate social responsibility the search engine will bring back any results that have those words in them. However, if you put quotation marks around the phrase, “corporate social responsibility”, the search engine will only bring back results that have all those words, exactly in the order you have them. This can also be useful when you’re searching for the title of a book or other resource. Click on the “Phrase Searching” page for more information. 

Using References/Works Cited Lists

Another good search tip is to let one good book or article lead you to others. Scholarly publications almost always have bibliographies or lists of works cited. These are lists of the resources the author used to write the book or article you’ve found. Explore these! If the original source is useful to you, works used by the author may be valuable, too. Click on the “Using References/Works Cited Lists” page for more information. 

How do you Present a Literature Search Strategy?

Here you can see what information should be included in a search strategy presentation, and some examples of what it might look like.

How can you present your search strategy?

• Strive to be as transparent as possible, it should preferably be possible for someone else to repeat your search and get the same result.
• In the methods section you describe how you did: if you did test searches, how you found search words, if you searched with both free-text words and controlled subject headings.
• In the method section, you can also describe and report articles that you have found in other ways than via the database search, for example if you have found articles via a reference list to another article or by manual search.
• The complete search strategy is usually also presented in table form. The table can be added as an appendix to the work.
• In order for you to be able to present your search strategy, it is important that you save the search you have made, in some way. A tip is to cut and paste from the database’s “Search history”.
• It is also possible to create an account in the databases to save searches.

What should a search strategy presentation contain?

• The name of the database
• The date you did the search
• Which search terms you have used
• How you searched (quotes, especially fields, truncations, etc.)
• How you have combined your search terms
• If you have used any filter, or restriction (language, year, etc.)

What is a Comprehensive Search Strategy?

It offers general advice for searching for systematic reviews and also addresses issues specific to systematic reviews of medical tests. Diagnostic search filters are currently not sufficiently developed for use when searching for systematic reviews.

Instead, authors should construct a highly sensitive search strategy that uses both controlled vocabulary and text words. A comprehensive search should include multiple databases and sources of grey literature. A list of subject-specific databases is provided.

The complete search strategy should be included so that the reader can assess the quality of the search and, thus, the quality of the review. Inadequate searches or errors in search strategies can affect the quality of the review and lead to bias.

What is Boolean Search Strategy?

Boolean searching is built on a method of symbolic logic developed by George Boole, a 19th century English mathematician.

Boolean searches allow you to combine words and phrases using the words AND, OR, NOT (known as Boolean operators) to limit, broaden, or define your search. A good researcher should know how to do a Boolean Search.

Knowing how to use Boolean operators effectively can save you a lot of time and help you to find useful sources, determine the relevance of your research topic, and create strong research questions. It’s also very helpful when you’re working on a literature review or systematic review.

Boolean operator	Function	Example
AND	Provides results that contain both or all keywords	paradigm AND syntagm
OR	Provides results that contain either keyword	meteor OR meteorite
NOT or AND NOT	Provides results that contain the first keyword but not the second	football NOT soccer
Quotation marks “”	Provides results with the exact phrase	“Newtonian mechanics”
Parentheses ()	Allows you to group together keywords and control the order in which the terms will be searched	(rural OR urban) AND sociology
Asterisk *	Provides results that contain a variation of the keyword	Develop* This will return results containing words such as “development,” “developer,” and “developing.”

Boolean searching allows the user to combine or limit words and phrases in an online search in order to retrieve relevant results. Using the Boolean terms: AND, OR, NOT, the searcher is able to define relationships among concepts.

OR

Use OR to broaden search results. This expands the search to include all records containing either concept. Think of using OR in terms of synonyms or related terms; for example “challenges” OR “barriers” OR “weaknesses”; or in the illustration below endangered OR birds. However, this increases the possibility of reducing relevancy if you haven’t selected the best keywords or concepts relationships.

AND

Use AND to narrow search results. You’re instructing the resource to retrieve only those documents or records containing both words or phrases; for example “online programs” AND “student success;” or in the illustration below endangered AND birds. The more terms added to the search, the narrower the results will be. Relevance of the retrieved items may depend upon the proximity of the words in the record (next to or near each other and in context).

NOT

Use NOT to narrow search results by eliminating specific words or phrases from the search results; for example student AND performance NOT musical will eliminate articles about student musical performances. While an effective strategy to reduce results, it may also eliminate documents with high relevancy to your topic.

What are the Five Basic Steps Using Search Engine?

Search engine optimization (SEO), also called search engine marketing (SEM), an online business promotion technique, is used to increase a website’s position in search engine result pages for a specific keyword. Search engine optimization can do tremendous changes to a business website.

If you are newer in online marketing, you have to understand the basic techniques and tools that are primarily applied in website promotion. Besides, there are some important keys to be remembered to succeed in search engine optimization process. Below, we explain five most important search engine optimization tools. They are:

1. Keyword Selection

Keyword selection is the first step in search engine optimization. Right keywords are important for a website. Search engine optimizers have to find out the best suit keywords that internet surfers would type to get information.

2. Use keywords in right position

Putting of keywords in the right position is much important as the selection of right keywords for a website. Make sure that the selected keywords are included in the title and subtitles of the website. Also, put the keywords throughout the content.

3. Content writing

Use informative and readable web content with good keyword density.

4.  Link Analysis

Links – both inbound and outbound links – are important for search engine ranking. Search engines check on links on each page. If a webpage has many good links from other top-ranking sites, the page may get high ranking compared to other pages.

5. Avoid search engine spamming techniques and tools

Use only the search engine-approved tools and techniques throughout the optimization process. Spamming techniques may be penalized or banned your website from search engine listings.

Search engine optimization is not a quick process. A little of patience and determination lead you at the top of search engine results.

How Many Types of Search are There?

Search queries – the words and phrases that people type into a search box in order to pull up a list of results – come in different flavors. It is commonly accepted that there are three different types of search queries:

1. Navigational search queries
2. Informational search queries
3. Transactional search queries

Navigational Search Queries

A navigational query is a search query entered with the intent of finding a particular website or webpage. For example, a user might enter “youtube” into Google’s search bar to find the YouTube site rather than entering the URL into a browser’s navigation bar or using a bookmark. In fact, “Facebook” and “youtube” are the top two searches on Google, and these are both navigational queries.

The fact is, you don’t stand much of a chance to target a navigational query unless you happen to own the site that the person is looking for. True navigational queries have very clear intent – the user has an exact site in mind and if you’re not that site, you’re not relevant to their needs.

Google, which classifies this type of query as a “go query” according to some reports, has even taken the step of reducing the total number of results on the first page to 7 for navigational brand queries, leading to a 5.5% reduction in overall organic first-page listings. However, some queries that appear to be navigational in nature might not be. For example, someone who googles “Facebook” might actually be looking for news or information about the company.

Informational Search Queries

Wikipedia defines informational search queries as “Queries that cover a broad topic (e.g., colorado or trucks) for which there may be thousands of relevant results.” When someone enters an informational search query into Google or another search engine, they’re looking for information – hence the name.

They are probably not looking for a specific site, as in a navigational query, and they are not looking to make a commercial transaction. They just want to answer a question or learn how to do something.

Informational queries are hard to monetize. Google knows this, which is why it’s been pushing the Knowledge Graph to address these types of queries. The best way to target informational searches is with high-quality SEO content that genuinely provides helpful information relevant to the query.

Wikipedia, for all its flaws, is pretty good at providing basic, reliable-enough info on an extremely broad range of topics, which is why they rank on the first page for about half of all searches (well, that and their enormously powerful link profile).

Wikipedia leaves a lot to be desired for a lot of informational searches, though. That’s where you come in! Here are some of the ways you could target informational queries to drive traffic and leads to your site through organic search:

• Write a blog post full of tips that would be useful for your prospective customers – if you’re a PR consultant, for example, you could write a blog post on how to create a press release.
• Create a how-to video that is relevant to your business.
• Write a detailed, step-by-step guide that elucidates a process relevant to your business (for example, take SEOmoz’s great beginner’s guide to SEO).
• Design an infographic that illustrates a concept.

There are many ways to approach informational content. Get creative. The goal is to position yourself as a trustworthy, authoritative source of information, not to try to cram your products down the searcher’s throat. This is the time to build awareness of your brand. If you can answer a searcher’s question, they’ll be more likely to think of you positively in the future if they need the kind of offerings you provide.

Transactional Search Queries

A transactional search query is a query that indicates an intent to complete a transaction, such as making a purchase. Transactional search queries may include exact brand and product names (like “Samsung galaxy s3”) or be generic (like “iced coffee maker”) or actually include terms like “buy,” “purchase,” or “order.” In all of these examples, you can infer that the searcher is considering making a purchase in the near future if they’re not already pulling out their credit card. In other words, they’re at the business end of the conversion funnel. Many local searches (such as “Denver wine shop”) are transactional as well.

What are the Two Ways to Search for Information?

Searching the internet can be a frustrating business. You enter a word or a phrase into a search engine and up comes a stack of irrelevant information. What you need is the ability to refine your search to get exactly what you want.

Below, we explore seven steps that you can take to pinpoint specific information online.

1. Vary Your Search Engine

Search engines sort through about 240 million active websites to provide you with content. You may favor one, but don’t let habit restrict you. No search engine is perfect, and they all have different blind spots.

The most widely used search engines are Google, Bing and Yahoo.

• Google usually returns the greatest variety of results and has by far the largest catalog of pages.
• Bing, however, has more extensive autocomplete results (where the search engine tries to narrow the search for you).
• Yahoo offers search as part of a wider range of services that includes news and shopping. Other engines such as DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and Dogpile also have their devotees.

2. Use Specific Keywords

Keywords are the terms that you use to find content on the internet. Making your keywords as specific as possible will help your search engine to track down the information that you want.

Say, for example, that you want to find a local supplier that can design an exhibition stand for your company. If you type stand design into your search engine, the results will include many pages about other types of stand, whereas typing exhibition stand designer will return a more concise range of companies.

You can further refine your search by including other specific keywords. If you add your location, for example, you’ll likely find someone local.

3. Simplify Your Search Terms

Some engines include stop words in their searches. These are frequently used words such as prepositions (in, of, on), conjunctions (and, but) and articles (a, the), which mean that you’ll end up with more pages in your search results than you need.

So, it’s usually best to eliminate stop words from your internet searches. The main exception is if you’re looking for a specific title or name that includes them.

Also, use the simplest form of the keywords that you’re looking for, by avoiding plurals and verb forms with suffixes such as -ing, -s or -ed. For example, you would improve the quality of your search results by searching for service rather than services, or finance rather than financed or financing.

4. Use Quotation Marks

Enclosing a search term within quotation marks prompts the search engine to search for that specific word or phrase.

If the term is a single word, using quotation marks will cut out stemmed variations of it. For example, if you search for the word director, you’ll likely receive a lot of results for direct, direction, directions, and so on, too. Typing “director” (with quotation marks), however, will ensure that you only get results for that stem word.

If the search term is a phrase, your search will be for that specific phrase, rather than for all the component words as individual items. So, for example, if you search for the phrase director of human resources, without quotation marks, your search will return results based on all of the words in the phrase (except of, which is a stop word.) Surrounding the term with quotation marks, however, will generate results that feature this specific term.

5. Remove Unhelpful Words

Inserting a hyphen/small dash/minus sign immediately before a word excludes it from a search.

So imagine, for example, that you’re looking to find out more about marketing. However, you want to concentrate on traditional marketing techniques, whereas the internet appears to be full of references to digital and social media marketing, all of which are appearing in your search.

Read Also: Top 4 Remote Work Trends That Will Shape 2022 – 2025

Typing in marketing -digital will exclude digital from the search, making it easier for you to find the information you’re looking for. Typing marketing -digital -social would allow you to get rid of even more clutter.

6. Refine Your Search Using Operators

Other characters or terms, known as operators, allow you to narrow down your internet search in more targeted ways. We explore a few, below:

• Wildcard Searches: use the * symbol as a placeholder for another word. For example, searching for * man in the world returns results for the richest man in the world, the tallest, the oldest, and so on. Wildcard searches are also useful when, for example, you don’t know the full text of a quote.
• Combination Searches: the OR operator enables you to search for two or more terms simultaneously, and is most useful when those terms are very similar. Typing selling OR retailing, for example, will return pages where either of the terms is used, without both needing to be present. Another way to combine searches is to use AND. This operator ensures that you receive only search results that include two or more terms. For example, the search “Smee Computers” AND “Devlin Corporation” would only deliver search results that include the names of both companies.
• Search a Specific Site: when you type site: followed by the URL of the website that you wish to search and a search term, you limit your search to a single website. So, site:mindtools.com “human resources” will return all the pages from MindTools.com that feature the term “human resources.”
• Finding Related Sites: another useful operator is related: Typing this in front of a web address that you already know – as in related:xyz.com – your search results will deliver a range of websites that are similar to xyz.com.

7. Avoid Search Pitfalls

When searching online, it’s important to bear in mind that many companies now have staff who are dedicated to improving their visibility online. They constantly tweak the wording of their websites to match the most commonly used keywords – a process known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

As a result, the sites listed at the top of your search results may have very good SEO, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that they’ll have the best content. So, even when you’ve put in the best search terms you can, it’s often worth digging down through your search results to find the best information.

With so much information now at your disposal, you need to be savvy about what is authoritative, and what is merely opinionated. Some blogs, for example, rank highly without actually being written by accredited experts. So, check carefully that the author of any information you use is well-regarded, and preferably associated with an academic institution, a professional body, or a reputable news organization.

It’s also worth being aware of paid advertisements, which can appear at the top of search engine listings because companies have paid for them to do so. These are simply designed to sell to you, which is fine if you’re looking to buy, but can be a hindrance to general search.