The Advanced Spy Search

When you know the basics of using search engines, you'll get a lot of information already. However, with the advanced search you have several options for precising your searches and getting further useful results.

For our advanced spy search we'll use Google.com (favorite search engines of spies and the rest of the world) as an example. You can find this page by clicking the "Advanced Search" link on the Google.com home page. Here's how the Advanced Search page looks like:

• which contain ALL the search terms you type in
• which contain the exact phrase you type in
• which contain minimum one of the words you type in
• which do NOT contain any of the words you type in
• are written in a certain language
• are created in a certain file format
• which have been updated within a certain period of time
• which contain numbers within a certain range
• are within a certain domain, or website
• which don't contain "adult" material

Everything you need for a spy search that delivers more results than you dreamt possible!

Using advanced search operators include:

1. Include Search
2. Synonym Search
3. OR Search
4. Domain Search
5. Numrange Search
6. Other Advanced Search Features

Using "+" search
The search engine (Google) ignores common words such as where, the, how, and other digits and letters that delay your search without improving the results. We shall indicate if a word was excluded by displaying details on the results page under the search box.

If a common word is necessary for getting the results you want, you may include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it, and be sure to include a space before the "+" sign. As an example, here's how to make sure that Google includes the "I" in a search for Star Wars, Episode I:

Using synonym search
If you want to search not just for your search term but additionally for its synonyms, place the tilde sign ("~") directly in front of your search term. As an example, here is how to search for food fact, nutrition and cooking information:

Using"OR" search
To find pages that include one of two search terms, put in an uppercase OR between the terms.

As an example, here is how to search for a vacation in either London or Paris:

Using domain search
You may use Google to look for only within only one specific website by entering the search key words you're looking for, followed by the word "site" and a colon followed by the domain name you want to search in.

As an example, here's how you would find information on admission on the Cairo University site:

Other useful advanced search features

• Google Local: looking for products and services in a specific U.S. town,city or zip code.
• Language: specify in which language you would like your results.
• Technology Search: find information related to specific thing like Apple Macintosh, BSD Unix, Linux or Microsoft.
• Date: restrict the results to the past three, six, or twelve month periods.
• Occurrences: specify where your search terms should occur on the result page - anywhere on the page, in the title, or in the url.
• Domains: search only a specific URL or website, or exclude that site from your search totally.
• SafeSearch: Eliminates sites that contain adult contents from spy search results.