How to Use Google Search

This is an article that guides you to perform basic search operations on Google – the world’s largest search engine. Once you know how to perform basic searches, you can learn how to use search terms, tools, and filters to get the most useful results.

Table of Contents

Perform basic search operations

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Open a web browser on your computer, phone, or tablet. You can access Google from any web browser like Safari, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. If your phone or tablet has the Google app (the multicolored “G” icon in the app list), you can open it to access Google without using a web browser.

Android: If you use a Samsung phone or tablet, tap the Internet or Samsung Internet icon . If you’re using a different model, you’ll tap Chrome , Browser , Web or similar app.
iPhone and iPad: Tap Safari with the compass icon at the bottom of the home screen to open the web browser.
KaiOS: Open Browser – the window you use to access the internet.
Mac: Your computer already has the Safari web browser. You can open the browser by clicking the compass icon in the Dock at the bottom of the screen.
Windows 10: You can open the Microsoft Edge browser available on your computer by clicking the Windows icon in the lower left corner of the screen, and clicking Microsoft Edge in the menu.
Windows 8 and earlier: You can use Internet Explorer to browse the web. This is the program with the blue “e” icon in the Start menu.

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Type www.google.com in the address bar. This is the bar displayed at the top of the browser. If you’re on a phone or tablet, tap the address bar to open the keyboard and enter information. When using the calculator, you will click on the address bar to be able to enter data.

If you use the Google app on your phone or tablet, skip to step 4.
Some browsers like Chrome, Safari, and KaiOS Browser allow you to type search keywords directly into the address bar instead of having to go to the Google page. Other browsers will have a default search engine like Bing on Microsoft Edge.

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Press ↵ Enter or ⏎ Return . If you’re using a phone or tablet, you’ll choose Search , Enter , or Go . Your browser will start loading the Google homepage.

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Enter the information you are looking for in the data entry field. For example, if you want to find places to eat in Hanoi, try typing “good restaurants in Hanoi”.

You can also search for words (“vegetarian,” “Bermuda”), phrases (“2004 tsunami”, “how to take care of ornamental plants”), questions (“what is the population of Vietnam?”, ” How much water should I drink?”) and more.
If you’re comfortable with searching by speaking information, click or tap the microphone icon (or turn on voice search), then follow the on-screen instructions to have Google access your microphone and say aloud the information you want to find.

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Click Google Search or tap the magnifying glass icon. This is to search for the keyword you entered and see the results as a list.

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Click or tap on a result to view information. If you get a web page, image, video, or other information that looks similar to what you’re looking for, click or tap the result to view it in your browser. To return to the list of search results, you’ll click or tap your browser’s return button (usually the left-facing arrow in the upper-left corner of the window).

The search results will display differently depending on the information you are looking for. For example, if you search for a word in a dictionary, you’ll see its definition and usage above the results. If you search for a specific place, the search results will show more maps.
If you go through the first page and still can’t find what you’re looking for, click or tap Next at the bottom of the page to move on to the next page. The most relevant results usually show up in the first pages of search results.

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Adjust search information to get different results. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, edit the information entered in the field at the top of the screen and try again. You can always search with more specific information, or even expand your search if the results aren’t as rich.

For example, instead of searching for “good restaurants in Hanoi”, you could try searching for “best bun cha in Hanoi 2020”
To increase search efficiency, you should refer to how to filter results.

Filter results

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Use the search engine controls to find matches. These are special characters that search engines can recognize to help you provide more specific search information. You can see the following examples: ^{[1] X Research Sources}

For a series of words in a sentence, such as a quote or topic type, enclosing those words in quotation marks (“) tells Google that you only want to find the exact word. when you just remember a few words in the lyrics and want to find the name of the song.
Type a minus sign (-) before the word you want to remove from the search results. For example, if you want to search for “nano” but don’t want iPod Nano to show up in the results, enter the keyword nano -iPod .
Common words like “how” and “what” are often overlooked in Google searches. If these are important search terms, you should add a plus sign (+) in front of them.
To find social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, you’ll put the @ sign in front of the search keyword. For example, @wikihow .
If you only want to see results from certain pages, put site: before the search keyword. For example, if you wanted to search for “iOS 13” on wikiHow, you would enter: site:wikiHow.com "iOS 13" .
To find items in a certain price bracket, you would use the syntax: phone $300..$700 . This example will show you the resulting phones in the $300 to $700 price bracket.

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Select the type of results you want to see. Depending on what you’re looking for, you’ll have the option to only view certain types of results, such as images, videos, or articles, using the choices at the top of the results page. Proceed as follows:

Click or tap Images at the top of the search results page so you can see all the photos that match the information entered.
- Please refer to how to search by image on Google.
Click or tap Videos to see a list of videos that match search results from many other websites, including YouTube.
Click or tap News to view articles from a variety of news sources related to the information you’re looking for.
Click or tap Books to see a list of books on the subject you’re looking for.
- You can check out the Google’s Books search feature for more details.
Other options such as Maps , Flights and Finance can be used for some related information. For example, if you searched for an address, you would click on Maps to see the place on the map, or Flights to plan a trip to that place.

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Displays results for a specific time period. If you only want to see results for the last 24 hours, last year, or another time period, follow these steps:

Select Tops or Search Tops . If you’re on a computer, you’ll see a Tops option at the top of the page, above the results. On a phone or tablet, you usually have to swipe the toolbar above the results to the left (it’s the bar with options like ALL), NEWS (News), VIDEOS and IMAGES (Images)) , and then select SEARCH TOOLS at the last position.
Click or tap the Any Time menu.
Choose a different time period. The page will be refreshed to only show results for the time period you select.
Click or tap Clear at the top of the page to clear the time filter.

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Set up filters when searching for images or videos. When searching for images or videos, you can use filters to choose quality, size, duration, and more in the following ways:

Select Tops or Search Tops above the photo or video search results. Several menus will appear here.
If you’re looking for a video, use the selection list at the top of the page to choose a duration (the length of the video), a source (such as YouTube, Facebook), or just choose to watch the video with subtitles.
When you find an image, you’ll use the menu at the top of the page to choose the size, type, color, and permission to use the image.
If you need more options to control what images show up in image search, check out Google’s advanced image search feature.

Perform advanced searches

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Search from https://www.google.com/advanced_search for the most accurate search results. Google’s advanced search page allows you to set up multiple search terms through a table. You can access this page from web browsers on your computer, phone or tablet.

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Enter search terms in the “Find pages with” section. This is the first section on the page. ^{[2] X Research Source} You don’t have to fill in all the boxes – just fill in the fields that are necessary for your search.

In the “all these words” field, you’ll enter important search terms. Thus, you will only see results that contain the words entered in this box.
In the “this exact word or phrase” field, enter the exact word or sentence you are looking for. This way you only get web pages that contain words or sentences that match what you entered.
Use “any of these words” (any of these) if you want to see results containing any of the words entered.
The “none of these words” field (none of these) will prevent search results from showing pages with the words you entered
For the “numbers ranging from” field, enter any number within the range you want to see. This is the right choice when you want to search by price or size.

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Narrow your search results to a section at the bottom of the page. You can now add some filter conditions to the resulting list. Again, you don’t necessarily have to select all of the options – just select the essentials to narrow down the results.

Use the “Language” menu to select the language for the search results.
Use the “Region” menu to view pages in a particular country or region.
The “Last Update” field will show you the results within the selected time limit.
Enter a web address in the “Site or domain” field if you only want to see results from a specific site.
The “Terms appearing” field is used to specify where search information is displayed on the page, such as on the title of the page or in the body.
Use the “SafeSearch” menu to control the display of adult content in search results.
The “File Type” menu allows you to choose a file format such as PDF or Word DOC.
The “Usage rights” menu is useful when you want to filter results based on copyright status.

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Click the Advanced Search button at the bottom of the page. You will now see search results that match the criteria entered in the filter.

Advice

Searching for certain information may give you different (or unchanged) results after a few days.
Many web browsers have built-in search boxes so you can search on Google and other search engines. In this case, you just need to enter the search keyword in that box without having to go further.
You can set up your Google search preferences using the Preferences link next to the Google search box.
Consider opening a Google account to access Google’s full search suite and internet tools
Choose keywords – choose a topic-specific word or phrase so that the results only show information relevant to your topic.

Steps

Perform basic search operations

Filter results

Perform advanced searches

Advice

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