How to Search Smarter and Get Better Results on Google

Struggling to find relevant search results on Google? You may need to re-think what you're asking the search engine. To put a modern twist an old adage, there are no stupid queries...but there are smarter ones.

There are several words and phrases you can add to your Google search queries in order to return more relevant results. They're called "search operators" and you can use them to ask better questions and hone in on precisely what you're looking for. Here's how.

How to Be a Smooth (Search) Operator

1. Search for an exact phrase - Are you looking for something very specific, maybe a motivational business quote, and want to filter out all of the excess noise? Surround your query in quotation marks, e.g., "Create a sense of demand, rather than waiting to have demand."

2. Exclude a word - If your query is too broad, you can narrow it down by excluding a word from your search. Let's say you want to search for restaurants in Portland, but you keep getting results for the cities in both Maine and Oregon. Narrow it down by using the minus symbol to remove results from the state you don't want: Restaurants in Portland -Maine

3. Search within a site - If you want to return results from only a certain website domain, specify it like this: housing statistics site:realtor.org