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ENV 4500 Environmental Solutions

Policy, Data, and Statistics

Google Search Tips

Try These Tricks When Searching Online

Tools like these help you find better search results more quickly.

Use the limiter site: to filter which websites your results are from. Add your own search terms after that.

Domain Name

Ask for websites that end with a certain domain name that may be more reliable or relevant.

  • site:.gov  only returns sites that end with .gov (federally funded government sites)
  • site:.edu only returns sites that end in .edu (higher education sites)

screenshot of Google search for site:.gov Aurora, Illinois

Website

Search an entire website from the back end with Google.

A screenshot of a Google search for site:aurora.edu research help

Add quotation marks around a word or phrase in a Google search to:

  • require all results include that word or phase
  • specify an exact phrase or spelling

A graphic showing that adding quotation marks around Illinois in a Google search returned results about the city of Aurora in IL, rather than Colorado

 

Find the Tools button at the top of your search results. When toggled, new options will be revealed, like the option to filter results by the date they were published. You may also choose to use the Google advanced search to get more specific!