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Civil and Environmental Engineering

Google Advanced Search Techniques

Limiter What Is Searched Example
Quotation marks Forces an exact-match search.  Words have to appear as given, same order Example: “Fender Guitar Owner’s Manuals”
Site Limit your search to a single site. (See below for limiting to a type of site (i.e., all sites ending in .edu) Example: STEM site:ucdavis.edu
Filetype tells Google to return only results for a specific type of file, such as PDF Example: seo filetype:pdf
Source Allows you to choose a specific source in Google News. apple source: NY Times
term1 around(5) term2 Proximity search:
term1 within 5 words of term2		 (electric car) around(5) environment

For more on Advanced Google Searches, see:

Google: https://www.google.com/advanced_search

Google Search of Limited Domains:

  • This search technique lets you limit where Google searches to find more robust results.

    • Example:  Open source info (on any topic) – is likely to be on the web, but where?

      • commercial websites (probably not)

      • government websites (maybe?)

      • non-profits (probably?)

      • university/college websites (likely)

    • Use the search statements below to limit where Google searches –> this can give you better results

Limiter What Is Searched Example
(search terms) site:*.gov only government web sites (“open source” and (farm* or agric*)) site:*.gov
(search terms) site:*.edu university & college web sites (“open source” and (farm* or agric*)) site:*.edu
(search terms) site:*.org domains that end in .org (“open source” and (farm* or agric*)) site:*.org
(search terms) site:*.com commercial sites  
(search terms) site:*.mil Military sites (mainly US?)  
term1 around(5) term2 Proximity search:
term1 within 5 words of term2		 (electric car) around(5) environment

 

This isn’t foolproof, other domains exist, more info: Generic Top-Level Domain