For many, searching in Google is a mystery and finding the exact content they need takes hours of scanning through pages. If you are like them, and have not learned how to use special codes or “operators” to define your search string then this tutorial will be a revelation to you.
Basically, when you type words into the search field, Google will then blast out into the web crawling all different sites for the words you have typed into their search. Because the spiders are just bots and not intelligent beings, they can only do what we ask them to do in a mathematical or systematical way.
That is why sometimes we get results that are not what we are looking for. To cut down the search time and increase the relevance of our search results, we can give the bots clear instructions, beyond the basic words, of what we want them to find for us.
Broad Match Search:
A broad match means that you have typed the words into the search field without any specifics or operators. So let’s say I was looking for: external hard drives. In a broad match, the search engines would deliver results for each individual word as well as the combination of words together on any pages. This is why you get such a large results from broad match. It is not as specific about what you are really looking for. Any page with external or hard or drives would appear in your results.
Phrase Match Search:
By adding an operator to the search phrase, we can narrow down the results to be a little more specific. [external hard drives] will give us results that include all of those words on the page. They may not be in the same order as you have typed them. This just tells the search engine that the page must have all three words included.
Exact Match Search:
To get an exact match to your phrase, you simply put quotation marks around the phrase. “external hard drives” will deliver you results specific to that exact wording of your phrase.
Related Posts:
Google Search-Basic Search Strings Tutorial
Google Search – Advanced Search Strings Tutorial
