Drill down to the answer

Jay White of DumbLittleMan.com has a nice site. One of the features is a list of 20 search tips to be used with Google.

Here are a few:

• Either/or. Google normally searches for pages that contain all the words you type in the search box, but if you want pages that have one term or another (or both), use the OR operator -- or use the "" symbol (pipe symbol) to save you a keystroke.
  
  
  
• Quotes. If you want to search for an exact phrase, use quotes.
  
  
  
• Not. If you don't want a term or phrase, use the "-" symbol.
  
  
  
• Similar terms. Use the "~" symbol to return similar terms.

• Definitions. Use the "define:" operator to get a quick definition.

• Vertical search. Instead of searching for a term across all pages on the web, search within a specialized field. Google has a number of specific searches, allowing you to search within blogs, news, books, and much more

Labels: Search, Tips