Using the -site- keyword to get better online search results

How do you separate weeds from wheat when searching for a topic online? Answer: Use a general search engine such as Google Search, but choose the source of your data before beginning search. This article will show you how to accomplish that.

For example, when I search for information overload, Google Search displays 102,000,000 possible answers.

It would take me hours to try finding relevant information away from all the ads and unqualified results. This is not a good way to search.

One step to improve search results is to decide upfront which data source we want to use for our research.

As an illustration, let me randomly pick an information source, such as The Guardian.

All I need to do is to add the following flag at the end of my search words (the Guardian website name):

site:theguardian.com

Here's what I mean (all in one line):

information overload site:theguardian.com

Now, my results are reduced to 3,650 possibilities and it seems that most of the articles found on the first page-result are relevant to the information I'm looking for.

Let me try another website:

Information overload site:npr.org

NPR gives me 562 results. It's not much, but those are high quality articles and I'll be delighted to skim through them if I have the time.

What if I want to see what other news outlets around the world are saying about information overload?

I can try Google News:

information overload site:news.google.com

That's 3,030 articles from newspapers and magazines around the globe.

Here's another example:

information overload site:smithsonianmag.com

Using site:websitename.com is a useful approach for getting good search outcomes. 

It is not a perfect solution, and not the only way to find information, but it's a must know, must use technique.

And you may be wondering if it isn't better to search the website directly. Well, you will get another result experience when doing so. Websites use their own search criteria, but nothing is as powerful as the mighty Google Search engine or its engine alternatives.

You probably already knew about this search technique, so let's put it to use more often. That will tell Google and other search engines that we need more of these tools to filter out irrelevant information from our valued research activities.

Happy search,

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