We all want to rank well within Google’s search engine listings and get our websites to the top of the rankings for as many keywords as possible, but from the point-of-view of a user, how can you get the most relevant search results?

There are many different tips and tricks that can be used to get very specific results and flush out all of the unwanted results to only give you the most relevant and up-to-date information. A lot of users don’t take advantage of the use of the different search operators that can be used and many users don’t even know about them so we have detailed a few of them below:

The Minus Sign (-)

Using the minus sign (-) as a prefix to a keyword that you type will remove any results from the listings that are related to this word. For example, if we were to type ‘SEO Birmingham -wowinternet’ then this would show all the results for SEO Birmingham without our website showing in the listings. This can be really handy when returning large amounts of data with a very open subject.

Specific Website Searching

If you would like to search for results only within a certain website then you can use the ‘site:’ operator to do this. For example, if you wanted to only find pages on web design within our website then you would search: ‘web design site:www.wowinternet.co.uk’. This can be extremely useful when looking for something specific to do with a certain company or site.

You can also search for certain types of websites using this same method, for example, if you were looking for results from educational or government bodies you could use ‘site:edu’ or ‘site:gov’ and it will only bring results from sites that have .gov or .edu domains.

File Type Specific Searching

One of the most useful search operators is the ‘filetype:’ operator that allows you to specify exactly what type of file you want to return in the search results, whether it be a PDF, HTML, PHP, DOC, etc. For example, if you wanted to find a PDF report that is about SEO then you could do the following search: ‘seo filetype:pdf’.

Using Multiple Operators

By incorporating a range of different operators you are able to create very specific and advanced search criteria. An example of a very advanced search query would be:

‘facebook page site:www.wowinternet.co.uk filetype:html’

This would search for all HTML pages on our website that are related to Facebook pages; the results are shown below:

As you can see, using these little tips, you can get some really specific results so try it out and hopefully this will help you out!

Many users of Google, ourselves included, were very excited to here of Google’s integrated social searching options that have recently been implemented. In fact, we wrote a blog not long about it and we were eager to see what it was like and were very positive about its’ introduction. Now what we have started to ask is exactly how relevant the search results that we are getting really are?

One of the most noticeable facets of the new search is the bias toward Google+. Now, you might be saying that they are well within their right to do this as it is there product and they have every right to promote it. On the other hand, Google dominates the search engine market and equates for over 80% of all searches made on the web, therefore, if they are placing higher importance on all of their products over any competition then isn’t this a bit monopolistic?

We have seen many cases of companies having action taken against them for pushing products upon their customers unfairly and Microsoft is a prime example with their Internet Explorer web browser. So what is there to stop Google to have such action taken upon them.

There has been quite a few bits of bad publicity surrounding Google recently with their dubious Adwords campaigns and many other companies and users not being happy with the new search options, so we wouldn’t be surprised if Google starts to lose some of its immaculate image over the coming months.

The most important thing for any user, no matter what they use Google’s search engine for is to be able to have the most relevant search results appear for whatever they are searching for. We understand what the search engine giant was trying to achieve by integrating social searches but in reality, it just isn’t working. Maybe we are being a bit too critical at the moment and maybe Google will come good (as they normally do!) but until then we will have to bear the frustration a little longer before we think about moving to Microsoft’s Bing!

Google has announced that it will be adding a whole new feature to their search engine that looks like it could have a huge effect on the way that we that we interact with Google and find the results that we want.

The Google search plus will now incorporate your social circles into the results that you see, for example, if you were trying to find an SEO company and searched the term ‘SEO company’ into Google, you would get all of the standard results plus you will now see any particular websites that your friends have interacted with or ‘+1′d’ so that you can have a much more personalised experience.

Google said in their blog: “Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web.”

The search engine giant has added three major features to the new searching system which are; personal results (as seen in the above image), profiles in search, and people and pages.

The ‘profiles in search’ will now allow you to search for a friend’s name in the search box and it will provide you with personalised search results related to their interests and give a link to their social accounts.

The ‘people and pages’ feature will show up results in a separate section on the results page that resemble that of the PPC ads to the right hand side of the result listings. For example, if you searched for ‘football’ you will get a section that contains football clubs and professional footballers’ Google+ profiles and pages so that you can instantly discover new people to interact with.

The changes that have been made haven’t been openly welcomed by all though, and ex-Google employee and now Twitter general council, Alex Macgillivray said in one of his tweets that it was a ”bad day for the Internet,” and went on to comment, “having been there, I can imagine the dissension at Google to search being warped this way.”