Checking when the mail closes, from which film you know this one actor or when the new season of your favorite series is coming out – we use the Internet for all this every day. These simple tips will save you even more time when searching the Internet.
The Internet as an everyday helper has become a matter of course for many. Anyone who calls up a lot of information via search engines could often proceed more effectively. With a few simple tricks, you can search the Internet even faster and save yourself unnecessary search ads on Google and Co.
Speed up Internet searches with special commands
You can not only use search engines with the normal search bar, but also feed them with special commands: Sounds more complicated than it is. A few parameters are enough to elicit what you are looking for more precisely from the web. Instead of just typing in a few terms, you can clearly narrow down the search field with the appropriate parameters. “This can help anyone who doesn’t find the result they are looking for right away,” says Jo Bager from the specialist magazine c’t.
At the latest, if the first attempt fails and you don’t find what you are looking for on the first one or two pages of results: simply put the search term in quotation marks. This means that several words can be combined into one search phrase. They ask the search engine to look for those exact terms in that exact order. You get the same result if you click on “verbatim” in the search filter on Google.
Commands for containment, exclusion, association
If you only want to get results from a specific website, you can specify that as well. For example, if you enter “Olaf Scholz site:tagesschau.de”, only entries that mention the Chancellor by name on tagesschau.de will be displayed.
“If you want to categorically exclude certain hits from the search results, you can enter a minus sign in the search,” says Rainer Schuldt from Computer Bild. For example, entering “Helene -Fischer“ ensures that nothing is displayed about the hit star via the Internet search, but only other hits in which the name Helene occurs. “The minus is there with all major search engines,” says Bager.
If, on the other hand, all desired search terms should be included, you can enter them with an “AND“ link, which should be capitalized to be recognized as a so-called operator. With an “OR“ you’ll get results that contain either one word or the other. But be careful: “It doesn’t always work reliably,” says Bager.
Fish out PDFs
The search addition “Filetype:pdf” reduces the result of the search on the Internet to PDF documents, such as operating instructions or holiday brochures. Websites on which the searched term could also occur are therefore excluded. According to Jo Bager, this is also possible with all major search engines.
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And what do other websites have to offer, for example alternative offers to your favorite sites? For example, if “related:ard.de” is in the search field, according to Rainer Schuldt, the search engine lists alternative sites from Computer Bild to the public broadcaster. This can be useful for drawing on news from multiple sources.
Search the Internet with limited time
According to Bager, the restriction in the search filter to a certain period of time is also useful. “Otherwise, Google finds things that are ancient and places them high up in the results“, he says. It is often sufficient to restrict the search to the past year.
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You can also use what are known as partial searches on Google, i.e. only search for news or images according to the filter below the search field. Here it is even possible to upload an image and search for similar photos.
Special search engines for special topics
According to Jo Bager, for some research it makes sense not only to use Google. If you search for people, for example, Xing and LinkedIn as well as yasni come into question. Blinde Kuh or Ask Finn, Onmeda or gesundheitsinformation.de describe clinical pictures for child-friendly content.
Microsoft’s search engine Bing can use the parameters “feed“ and “has feed“ Track down RSS feeds. It is also possible to search for content by language and place of origin, but not always reliably, reports Bager. To do this, keywords with two-digit language and country codes are added, for example “language:fr“ for French or “location:be“ for Belgium.
DuckDuckGo offers searchers a so-called bang directory. According to Bager, there are almost 12,000 special search engines of all kinds that DuckDuckGo can control with shortcuts. The bang descriptions can also be searched, so that in the end everyone should find the search target.