Custom Search

Getting Better Search Results

Choosing the right search terms is the key to finding the information you need.

Start with the obvious – if you're looking for general information on Veterans, try Veterans.

But it's often advisable to use multiple search terms; if you're looking for veterans benefits information, you'll do better with "veterans benefits" than with either benefits or veterans by themselves. And "veterans benefits" + dental may produce even better results.

You might also ask yourself if your search terms are sufficiently specific. It's better to search on "veterans hospital" + California than on veterans hospitals. But choose your search terms carefully; Google looks for the search terms you chose, so veterans hospitals California will probably deliver better results than "where can get veterans get medical care in California"

Capitalization

Google searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for george washington, George Washington, and gEoRgE wAsHiNgToN will all return the same results.

Automatic "and" queries

By default, Google only returns pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms. Keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results. To restrict a search further, just include more terms. For example, to find veterans compensation information, simply type

Another methodfor doing this is conducting a phrase search, which simply means putting quotation marks around two or more words. Common words in a phrase search (e.g., "where are you") are included in the search. Example "Vietnam veteran" will return results where those two words appear together without the quotes results would reflect pages that included both Vietnam and veteran but not necessarily together.

Word variations (stemming)

Google now uses stemming technology. Thus, when appropriate, it will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. If you search for pet lemur dietary needs, Google will also search for pet lemur diet needs, and other related variations of your terms. Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result.

Phrase searches

Sometimes you'll only want results that include an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms.

Phrase searches are particularly effective if you're searching for proper names ("George Washington"), lyrics ("the long and winding road"), or other famous phrases ("This was their finest hour").

Negative terms

If your search term has more than one meaning (bass, for example, could refer to fishing or music) you can focus your search by putting a minus sign ("-") in front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid.

For example, here's how you'd find pages about bass-heavy lakes, but not bass-heavy music:

Note: when you include a negative term in your search, be sure to include a space before the minus sign.

Advanced Operators

Google supports several advanced operators, which are query words that have special meaning to Google. Typically these operators modify the search in some way, or even tell Google to do a totally different type of search. For instance, "link:" is a special operator, and the query (link:www.hadit.com) doesn't do a normal search but instead finds all web pages that have links to www.hadit.com.

Several of the more common operators use punctuation instead of words, or do not require a colon. Among these operators are OR, "" (the quote operator), - (the minus operator), and + (the plus operator). More information on these types of operators is available on the Basics of Search above. Many of these special operators are accessible from the Advanced Search page, but some are not. Below is a list of all the special operators Google supports.
Alternate query types

cache:

If you include other words in the query, Google will highlight those words within the cached document. For instance, (cache:www.hadit.com web) will show the cached content with the word "web" highlighted.

This functionality is also accessible by clicking on the "Cached" link on Google's main results page.

The query (cache:) will show the version of the web page that Google has in its cache. For instance, (cache:www.hadit.com) will show Google's cache of the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "cache:" and the web page url.

link:

The query (link:) will list webpages that have links to the specified webpage. For instance, (link:www.hadit.com) will list webpages that have links pointing to the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "link:" and the web page url.

This functionality is also accessible from the Advanced Search page, under Page Specific Search > Links.

related:

The query (related:) will list web pages that are "similar" to a specified web page. For instance, (related:www.hadit.com) will list web pages that are similar to the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "related:" and the web page url.

This functionality is also accessible by clicking on the "Similar Pages" link on Google's main results page, and from the Advanced Search page, under Page Specific Search > Similar.

info:

The query (info:) will present some information that Google has about that web page. For instance, (info:www.hadit.com) will show information about the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "info:" and the web page url.

This functionality is also accessible by typing the web page url directly into a Google search box.

Other information needs

define:

The query (define:) will provide a definition of the words you enter after it, gathered from various online sources. The definition will be for the entire phrase entered (i.e., it will include all the words in the exact order you typed them).

stocks:

If you begin a query with the (stocks:) operator, Google will treat the rest of the query terms as stock ticker symbols, and will link to a page showing stock information for those symbols. For instance, (stocks: intc yhoo) will show information about Intel and Yahoo. (Note you must type the ticker symbols, not the company name.)

This functionality is also available if you search just on the stock symbols (e.g. ( intc yhoo )) and then click on the "Show stock quotes" link on the results page.

Query modifiers

site:

If you include (site:) in your query, Google will restrict the results to those websites in the given domain. For instance, (help site:www.hadit.com) will find pages about help within www.hadit.com. (help site:com) will find pages about help within .com urls. Note there can be no space between the "site:" and the domain.

This functionality is also available through Advanced Search page, under Advanced Web Search > Domains.

allintitle:

If you start a query with (allintitle:), Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the title. For instance, (allintitle: google search) will return only documents that have both "google" and "search" in the title.

This functionality is also available through Advanced Search page, under Advanced Web Search > Occurrences.

intitle:

If you include (intitle:) in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the title. For instance, (intitle:google search) will return documents that mention the word "google" in their title, and mention the word "search" anywhere in the document (title or no). Note there can be no space between the "intitle:" and the following word.

Putting (intitle:) in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting (allintitle:) at the front of your query: (intitle:google intitle:search) is the same as (allintitle: google search).

allinurl:

If you start a query with (allinurl:), Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the url. For instance, (allinurl: google search) will return only documents that have both "google" and "search" in the url.

Note that (allinurl:) works on words, not url components. In particular, it ignores punctuation. Thus, (allinurl: foo/bar) will restrict the results to page with the words "foo" and "bar" in the url, but won't require that they be separated by a slash within that url, that they be adjacent, or that they be in that particular word order. There is currently no way to enforce these constraints.

This functionality is also available through Advanced Search page, under Advanced Web Search > Occurrences.

inurl:

If you include (inurl:) in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the url. For instance, (inurl:google search) will return documents that mention the word "google" in their url, and mention the word "search" anywhere in the document (url or no). Note there can be no space between the "inurl:" and the following word.

Putting "inurl:" in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting "allinurl:" at the front of your query: (inurl:google inurl:search) is the same as (allinurl: google search).