Google search is as ubiquitous as it gets. In fact, according to Statcounter, Google search currently has an 87.71% stranglehold on the search engine market share (with the next being Bing at 6.72%). That means a vast majority of people use Google as their default way of googling.
Yeah, Google is so prevalent the name of the platform has been officially verbed. There's even an entry in Merriam Webster for google, which is: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (someone or something) on the World Wide Web.
You might have even come across this article about Google Search by way of googling it in Google Search. See how that works?
Okay, but chances are pretty good you're missing out on effectively googling with Google. Let's see if we can fix that with a few Google Search tips that anyone can use.
Ready? Let's get to it.
How to get exact results
Say you type Linux distribution in the Google search field. The results of that search will display any entry that includes either Linux or distribution. But what if you only want to see results that include the string exactly as you typed it (as in Linux distribution)? For that, you would surround the string in double-quotes, as in "Linux distribution".
How to search a specific website
This is a neat trick. Say you want to search ZDNet for Linux distributions. For that, you could use the site parameter, as in Linux distribution site:zdnet.com. That search would only display the results found on the site in question.
How to do an OR search
Let's say you want to do a search that tells Google to list any site that contains either Ubuntu