Unlocking the Power of Google Searching – Part 1

In technology transfer, as in many professions, we are constantly on the search for information, be it market data, technical info, or prior art. Our office recently invited research librarian Ann Cullen, from Emory’s Goizueta Business Library, to visit and share her tips on how to use Google to search more effectively and efficiently. It was an enlightening session with lots of helpful hints & tricks for harnessing the search engines powers. Below is a short list highlighting our favorites:

• Search for a term and its synonyms,  preface it with ~ (e.g., ~energy returns energy, oil, gas)

• Search within a range of numbers by using an elipse – Number range X..X (e.g., 2007…012)

• Search titles: intitle:”x” (e.g., intitle:altzheimers or intitle:”cancer treatment”)

• Search in text: intext:”x” or (e.g., intext:patent or intext:”patent reform”)

• Search a site: site:”x” (e.g., census site:gov)

• Search a url: inurl:”x” (e.g., “technology transfer” inurl:*.edu or sequestration inurl:blogs)

• Find all pages that link a specific page: link:”page url” (e.g., link:emory.edu)

• Search for a file type: filetype:”x” (e.g., ~cancer ~cost filetype:pdf)

• Search for similar webpages: related:”page url” (e.g., related:”http://www.heart.org”)

• Search for definitions: define:”word” (.e.g., define:”global warming”)

Ann’s best takeaway however was a simple, but often forgotten, message – take a few minutes before you dive in to plan your search and think about what you are looking for and how you should frame the search. She also impressed upon us to learn from our search results and use them to refine the next search.

Be on the lookout for Part II next week where we share some other helpful, more general tips for web searching, especially ones to try when you are having a difficult time obtaining useful results & are “stuck.”