Tips to Search the Web like a Pro, Part 2

Last week, we shared four tips to help you search the web and find anything that you're looking for. In part 2, we will take a look at additional search tools that will help you refine your searches so you can become a search master!

Have you ever needed to find a blog article you read a few months ago, but you don't remember what site it was on, and you only remember a few details about the article to aide you in your search? Where do you even begin?

Google Search Tools
You can start by using the advanced search tools in Google. Start by searching for your query on Google.com, and Google will give you some options under the search bar. By clicking Search tools, three drop down menus will appear below: Any time, any results, and whatever city you are currently located.

If you have a good idea of when the article was published, then you can use Any Time to narrow your search between the ranges of the past 24 hours to the Past year. Or you can select Custom range to narrow down your search even further by using a calendar to pick out dates for Google to search to and from.

Let's say you remember the article was from Newsweek, the topic was SEO, and you recall reading it within the past month. You would type site:Newsweek.com SEO into your search bar, and then select Search Tools > Past month. Every article published on Newsweek.com in the past month that contains the word "SEO" will appear.

If using the Any time search tool like this doesn't give you the result you're looking for, then you can broaden your search range by looking beyond the past month. Try Past year or use Custom range, and if this doesn't work, then you still have some additional search options at your disposal.

Google News Search
It may be that it really wasn't a Newsweek article like you remember it. To expand your Google search, click on the More tab which will reveal a drop down menu. This will help you narrow down the search by type of article. For this search, you will want to click on News. The results displayed are content produced by journalists and media alike. With the news tab selected, go ahead and search again for SEO. By default, Google will display the articles published in the past month. You can adjust this, in the search settings.

Search the Content within an Article
Let's say that you finally come across the article you were looking for. Congratulations, you are halfway done with you journey, to becoming a search master! To complete your training, you will want to go deeper. You can use your newly found article to help you sharpen your searching skills. In your article, you will see that a source is being referenced that doesn't have a link. You can use Google's news archives to track down that source.

To search the news archives, use Google search to enter the information about the source, and then go to the News tab > Any time > Archives. Google search will now display all the relevant archived news stories that go back much further than just the past month. You will now refine your search even more in the form until you see the result you're looking for.

Navigating the web for specific and obscure content is not always an easy task, but armed with the proper know how, you will be able to access almost any content that you're looking for. Your journey to becoming a search master is not over yet, we have part 3 of our article "Tips to Search the Web like a Pro" coming out next week. We're sure that you will be able to find it!