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It still amazes me how many people don't know these handy tricks for getting better results from your search queries using Google, Yahoo, Bing, or almost any other search engine there is. I decided that it might be useful to put together a short list of some handy tips and tricks that will help you find more useful results the next time you have to type into a search box.

Double Quotes:
Lets say you are looking for content about ice fishing. Instead of just typing ice fishing into the search box, you would be better off searching explicitly for the phrase by enclosing the search phrase within double quotes.

Example: "ice fishing"

The Minus Sign:
Continuing to use ice fishing as an example, let's say you don't want to include any results that contain the term Alaska. To do this, simply use the "-" sign in front of the word you want to exclude.

Example Search: ice fishing -alaska

The Tilda:
Let’s say you are want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words or synonyms. To do this, use the "~" in front of the word.

Example: "ice fishing" ~accessories

Using OR:
By default, when you do a search, the results will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. (Note: The OR has to be capitalized).

Example: "ice fishing" OR northern finshing resorts

The Double-Dot
This is a rarely used, but highly useful tip. Let’s say you want to find results that contain any of a range of numbers. You can do this by using the ".." modifier (two periods). This type of search is useful for years (as shown below), prices or anywhere where you want to provide a series of numbers.

Example: american history 1776..1976