Google Search Tips

[7is]

I like searching for specific information, pen model or interesting topic and I love pictures. These days it is really hard to filter something useful with most results coming from ebay, amazon, picclick, pinterest, etc. Fortunately, good old google still allows for customised searches.

 

For example, the following simple search allows to pull results from several fountain pen forums and some blog platforms together:

 

montblanc 136 site:fountainpennetwork.com OR site:fpgeeks.com OR site:penexchange.de OR site:stylo-plume.org OR site:estilograficas.mforos.net OR site:fountainpen.it OR site:penboard.de OR site:wiki.penciclopedia.it OR site:fountainpen.de OR site:.wordpress.* OR site:.blogger.* OR site:.blogspot.*

 

Of course there are plenty of other options to tweak a google search to find a specific piece of information or picture more efficiently.

 

Maybe someone will find it helpful.

[dinupravin]

Good of you to share it here in forums. Already use it to search forums.

[carlos.q]

You can also exclude sites you don't want searched. This way you can also get results from sites you didn't even know existed:

 

montblanc 136 -ebay -pinterest -picclick -pinterest

[Olya]

I think something has happened to google in the last few months and it's making it unusable to me (not that harsh really, but close).

 

I found out by chance many years ago that using country-specific sites (eg .co.uk, .fr, .de etc you know) gave much better results than using your country's site, even when restricting search to X languages.

 

So I always used country-sepcfific sites from then on, for ever now.

 

Now whichever site I use I get similar search results and even in languages I have excluded.

It is driving me nuts, I hate it.

 

The search takes my location into account and I don't know what else, instead of focusing on the language settings or the simple fact that I am using google UK and want only English-speaking results, not also those in the language of my computer or location muddled in.

 

Also I hate with a burning passion when I visit a site (.com or whatever) and it redirects me to my location/ country's site and I can't change it. I don't know what idiot invented that.

 

Or sites (esp newspaper sites!) where you scroll down to the end of the article and it then automatically sends you to the homepage without asking you or making it possible to stop that.

 

Whole rant here.

 

I've done website design and these things I neither understand nor get, and these things drive me absolutely crazy.

 

Google should know and work better than ignoring my settings and preferences!!!

Edited April 21, 2019 by Olya

[Bibliophage]

I use duckduckgo, mostly.

[thesmellofdustafterrain]

I've started using duckduckgo lately. Not for everything, but for anything google can't or won't give me relevant results for.

[Olya]

I've also been increasingly using duckduckgo.

 

The worst is being used to something (over years or even decades), so it's more so breaking a habit and getting used to another look and layout, which is diffcult...

 

I've also thought about using Bing more... eg the Ecosia version

[txomsy]

Thanks for sharing this info, it is already most useful.

[Iur]

Very nice topic, thanks!