Learn search tips & how results relate to your search on Google

Here are a few tips and tricks to help you easily find info on Google.

Start with the basics

You can start with a simple search like where's the closest airport?. You can add more descriptive words if needed.

If you want to find a place or product in a specific location, add the location in your search. For example, bakery seattle.

Search with your voice

To search with your voice, tap the Microphone . Learn how to use Google Voice Search.

Choose words carefully

Use terms that are likely to appear on the site you're looking for. For example, instead of my head hurts, say headache, because that’s the term a medical site uses.

Don't worry about the little things

  • Spelling: Google's spell checker uses the most common spelling of a given word, regardless of how you spell it. 
  • Capitalization: A search for New York Times is the same as a search for new york times.

Find quick answers

For many searches, Google provides answers directly in the search results. Some features, like details about sports teams, aren't available in all regions.

  • Weather: To find the weather in your location, search weather. To find weather for a certain place, add a city name, search weather seattle.
  • Dictionary: In front of any word to find its definition, add define.
  • Calculations: To solve math equation, enter something like 3*9123, or solve complex graphing equations.
  • Unit conversions: To find any conversion, enter something like 3 dollars in euros.
  • Sports: To find a schedule, game scores, and more, search for the name of your team.
  • Quick facts: To find related info, search for the name of a celebrity, location, movie, or song.

How results relate to your search on Google

You can find tips for your search on Google in the “Your search & this result” section of the “About this result” panel. This section lists a few relationships between your search and the results.

Find search information about a result

  1. Start a search on Google.
  2. After the URL for a search result, select More .
  3. In the “About this result” panel, scroll to “Your search & this result."

Tip: To find search tips in the “Your search & this result” section, hover over or tap the underlined terms.

Search info & tips you might find

The “Your search & this result” section in the “About this result” panel might list one or more of the following relationships. These are between your search, your search settings, and a result.

Search terms & related terms

To find useful results, search terms or keywords are one of the most important factors that Google Search uses.

Google Search tries to find content that matches every word in your search. Sometimes the most helpful results don't have exact matches for all your search terms.

For example, if you want to search for a quote but don’t remember the exact words. Search results that exactly match your terms are less helpful than results that have the correct quote. Google Search might include results that only contain some of the terms you enter.

A highly relevant result might not contain your exact terms but it has related terms. For example, a search for jogging shoes might list results that don’t include “jogging,” but have the related word “running.”

The “Your search & this result” section highlights how search terms are used with statements like:

  • These search terms appear in this result.
  • Terms related to your search appear in this result.
  • This result contains images related to your search terms.

Tip: For more options on terms that match, try Advanced Search. For more info about search operators like quotes and minus, learn how to refine web searches.

Learn about relevant links

To find relevant search results, Google Search checks how content links to other content on the web. In addition to word matches on the page, Search uses the text in links that point to a page. For example, many people call the Keyword "the google blog." If you search for the google blog, you can find the Keyword at the top, because that’s how other websites describe the page when they link to it.

The “Your search & this result” section highlights when your search and the result are related due to web links:

  • Other websites with your search terms link to this result.

Tip: If you don’t remember the name of a site, try to search for it the way others might describe it.

Learn about websites

To find the page relevant to your search, Google Search checks for search terms related to specific websites.

The “Your search & this result” section highlights when your search terms are used to find specific websites:

  • The website <domain.com> matches one or more of your search terms.

Tip: To find results from a specific website, in front of a site or domain, add site. For example, site:youtube.com.

Location: City or State

Some searches need local information or results to be helpful. To find results that are locally relevant to you, Google Search uses your location if you share it, or estimates your location. Learn about your location and Google Search.

The “Your search & this result” section highlights when results are relevant for a city or state:

  • This result is relevant for searches near <location>.

Tip: To get results from a specific location, add place names to your search. For example, car dealerships fort lauderdale instead of car dealerships.

Country or region & language

In the Google Search settings, helpful results match your language and region. Sometimes Google Search might identify helpful results in other languages or from other regions. Here are some examples:

  • If your language is set to English but you search in Chinese, the most relevant results might be written in Chinese.
  • If you’re in the US and you search for India news, the most relevant results might be content from India.

The “Your search & this result” section highlights the language and region of a result:

  • This result is in <language>.
  • This result seems relevant, even though it’s not in <language>.
  • This result seems relevant for searches from <region>.
  • This result seems relevant for searches from many regions, including <region>.
  • This result seems relevant for this search, even though it typically appears for searches outside <region>.

Tips:

Publication date

When you search for a topic that’s trending or has recent information, Google Search might use a publication date. This is to provide the most relevant, recently updated, or published results.

The “Your search & this result” section highlights when a result was recently published:

  • This result was published recently.

Tip: To find results published during a specific period, try the filters in Search Tools or Advanced Search. Learn how to narrow search results with filters.

Content type

Some searches benefit from:

  • Images
  • Videos
  • Maps
  • Other specific types of content

The “Your search & this result” section highlights when a content type might be helpful, like:

  • Videos may be helpful for your search.
  • Local information, like a map and contact info, may be helpful for this search.
  • Job listings, including job title and location, may be helpful for your search.

Tip: To search for specific types of content, like images or videos, include those words in your search. Learn how to narrow search results with filters.

Explicit results

Google Search gives the most relevant results for your search. If you have SafeSearch turned off, results can include explicit content.

The “Your search & this result” section highlights when a result might be explicit when SafeSearch is off, so relevant explicit results may be shown.

Tip: If you don’t want explicit content in your search results, turn on SafeSearch. Learn about SafeSearch.

Connections between the search & the result may seem unclear

Occasionally, the statements in the “Your search & this result” section might not seem correct. Reasons for this might include:

  • Web pages change frequently. Connections between the search and the result are based on Google Search's last visit to the content, and the page may have changed after that visit.
  • Search couldn’t accurately determine the language of the web page, particularly if it uses multiple languages.
  • A related word is actually unrelated in the context of your particular search.

Give feedback on “About this result”

You can tell us what’s helpful or report a problem. This helps us improve Google Search for everyone.

At the bottom of the “About this result” panel, select Send feedback on this info.

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