Google Operators and Search Tips

To narrow your Google search, try a search operator. Add one of these symbols to your search terms in the Google search box to gain more control over the results that you see. Don’t worry about memorizing the operators - you can use the Google Advanced Search page (http://www.google.com/advanced_search)  to generate many of these searches.

Search for an exact word or phrase
"search query"

Use quotes to search for an exact word or set of words. This option is handy when searching for song lyrics or a line from literature.
[ "imagine all the people" ]

Tip: Only use this if you're looking for a very precise word or phrase, because otherwise you could be excluding helpful results by mistake.

Exclude a word
-query

Add a dash (-) before a word or site to exclude all results that include that word. This is especially useful for synonyms like Jaguar the car brand and jaguar the animal.
[ jaguar speed -car ] or [ pandas -site:wikipedia.org ]

Tip: You can also exclude results based on other operators, like excluding all results from a specific site.

Include similar words
~query

Normally, synonyms might replace some words in your original query. Add a tilde sign (~) immediately in front of a word to search for that word as well as even more synonyms.
[ ~food facts ] includes results for "nutrition facts"

Search within a site or domain
site: query

Include "site:" to search for information within a single website like all mentions of "Olympics" on the New York Times website.
[ Olympics site:nytimes.com ]

Tip: Also search within a specific top-level domain like .org or .edu or country top-level domain like .de or .jp.
[ Olympics site:.gov ]

Include a "fill in the blank"
query * query

Use an asterisk (*) within a query as a placeholder for any unknown or "wildcard" terms. Use with quotation marks to find variations of that exact phrase or to remember words in the middle of a phrase.
[ "a * saved is a * earned" ]

Search for either word
query OR query

If you want to search for pages that may have just one of several words, include OR (capitalized) between the words. Without the OR, your results would typically show only pages that match both terms.
[ olympics location 2014 OR 2018 ]

Tip: Enclose phrases in quotes to search for either one of several phrases.
[ "world cup 2014" OR "olympics 2014" ]

Search for a number range
number..number

Separate numbers by two periods (with no spaces) to see results that contain numbers in a given range of things like dates, prices, and measurements.
[ camera $50..$100]

Tip: Use only one number with the two periods to indicate an upper maximum or a lower minimum.
[ world cup winners ..2000 ]



Source: Google Support