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Google Search Tip: Date

2/3/2014

I'm wearing my librarian hat today. Here's an update to an earlier post about limiting Google searches by date. The examples pictured are research oriented, but authors may want to use this trick to google themselves.

Enter search, click on Search Tools to see Any Time

Custom range allows more flexibility

Click on Any Time for drop down menu of choices

Date search is based on date/time of update to a website. Google does not rank by date, so older webpages will appear in search results. Date search can be combined with Site Search (.gov, .edu, etc.--see earlier post)

Google Tip: Search by Site

1/25/2014

Search by Site Domain Name & Homepage URL

Limit your Google searches (and Bing, too) to a particular domain name (.edu, .gov, .org, etc.) or search within a site's homepage URL. Try it, then notice the search result URLs.

Examples: "war of the roses" site:.edu "war of the roses" site:.www.princeton.edu

Click here for larger images.

Search followed by site:.domain (site colon dot domain, no spaces) (.edu, .gov, .org, etc.)

Searach, followed by the URL for the site’s homepage (site colon dot URL, no spaces)

Note: no spaces between site:.edu; no spaces between site:.www.princeton.edu

Why quotes? Quotes force the words together into a phrase)

Google Tip: Search by last update date

6/22/2013

Google searches often return millions of hits. The first ones visible are generally the ones Google's algorithms have decided are the best match for your search. Sometimes, what you really want is the latest information, or perhaps information from a particular period of time. Here's how to limit your search by date:

Enter your search, then look for Search Tools on the hits screen.

Click on Search tools, and you'll see Any time (and a tiny down arrow):

Click on Any time, and you'll be able to select a time period, or even a custom time period.

This can be useful when, say, you're googling yourself :-) and trying to find the latest sites that mention you, or, if you're an author, your book. Give it a try. Let me know what you think by commenting.

Google Search Tip: Date

Google Tip: Search by Site

Google Tip: Search by last update date

Virginia Kelly

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