Limiting by broad domains
Domains are just broad categories of websites. What a website address ends in (.com, .edu, .org, .mil) tells you whether it is a commercial or educational or organization or military domain. Using the domain codes in google with the "site:" command you can can limit your results to a specific category of domains. (site:edu, site:gov, site:org, site:mil, etc.) or to specific sites: site:oceancountygov.com OR site:app.com
This is a great way to get rid of commercial sites. Limiting to specific websites is very helpful when a site doesn’t have a search engine or the search engine isn’t very good. (It is always a good idea to use Google to search the State of New Jersey website. Just include site:nj.gov along with your search terms.)
Limit your results to specific file types
Need to create a powerpoint on a topic? See what others have done by limiting your results to Powerpoint presentations.
To find powerpoint presentations, add filetype:ppt to your searches
To find Adobe pdf documents, add filetype:pdf to your searches
Practice Exercises:
Search a major disease like diabetes or arthritis or influenza in Google. Then add site:gov to the search. Compare results.
Try adding site:edu instead of site:gov to get results from college and university sites instead of government sites.
Use Google to search just within the NJ state website
Either command "site:nj.gov" or "site:state.nj.us" will work.
Try these sample searches:
underground railroad site:nj.gov
nj town names site:nj.gov
Compare results with using the search feature on the NJ State website. Does Google with a site limit or the regular NJ state website search get better results? Did you find the 15 page pdf guide to NJ and the Underground Railroad or the great database for local NJ town names (Lacey & Forked River)?
If you’re looking for even more search options in Google, there is a quick guide at Google.
To complete this challenge, try the above sample searches and play around a bit with the advanced search features and blog about your results. If you use something you learned to help a customer that would be a great thing to blog about.
Catscupcake tried the Google Advance Search and found out there are many specific things Google Advanced Search can find for you, like conversion charts, area code locators, just to name a few. When helping customers look for info, I'll be sure to use these advanced features.
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