Fine Tuning a Google Search

Google search has several operators that can modify your search.  Include these in your search as needed.

For clarity, I try to use [] to indicate the text I type in the search box. I don't actually type the brackets.

Excluding keywords

"-" this will exclude specific words.  That is, these words must not appear on the page. For example

Requiring keywords

"+" as you might guess, requires that the words must appear on the page

quoatation marks mean words need to appear together as a phrase

For example, a news search for [tuberculosis] will include references to Johnson County Community College. 

If you want to exclude community colleges you would search for [tuberculosis -"community college"] and to exclude both community colleges and high schools it would be [tuberculosis -"community college" -"high school"] In most cases, Google will automatically include plurals as part of the search criteria.

 Google's Advance Search Page

You may find the advanced search page a useful way to construct these queries until you get used to the syntax.

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

Remember to use the quotation marks to avoid misapplying your criteria.

In the same way you can do [cholera -zimbabwe] if you want global news on cholera without the mix of health and political news coming from Zimbabwe overwhelming the other relevant global news on cholera.

External References

I love AJ Jacobs, author and columnist at Esquire.  Checkout his article "How to Google Efficiently".