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faq » Search

The Essentials of Search
Doing a search is easy. Simply type one or more search terms (the words or phrase that best describe the information you want to find) into the search box and hit the 'Enter' key or click on the Search button.
Advanced Operators
Several of the more common operators use punctuation instead of words, or do not require a colon. Among these operators are OR, "" (the quote operator), - (the minus operator), and + (the plus operator). More information on these types of operators is available on the Basics of Search page. Many of these special operators are accessible from the Advanced Search page, but some are not. Below is a list of all the special operators Google supports.
Search Results Page
Your search results page is packed with information. Here's a quick guide to decoding it. Each underlined item is a search result that the Google search engine found for your search terms. The first item (not counting News results) is the most relevant match we found, the second is the next-most relevant, and so on down the list. Clicking on any underlined item will take you to the associated web page. But first, here's a sample search results page, along with brief explanations of the various types of information about your search results that you can find there.