10 Powerful Google Search Tips

Read time: 3 mins

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Google is the most powerful tool in the world.

But the truth is 99% of people are still using it like it was 20 years ago.

Here are 10 Googling tips that will save you tons of hours and boost your productivity in seconds:

1. Quotation marks “…”

This will return an exact match.

• Example: you search for "customer success" and not just customer, or success.

2. Vertical Bar |

Same as using “OR”.

Search for one or the other term:

• Example: Gainsight | Catalyst

3. Two Periods ..

Use two periods to search within a given time range:

• Example: startups 2020..2023

4. Before/After

This will return results that were published after a given date:

• Example: customer success after:2022

  You can also use a more precise format after:2022-12-17

5. Dash -

Add a hyphen before the word to narrow down and exclude in search results.

• Example: customer success -software

  You just want information about customer success as a field, and not customer success software solutions.

6. Filetype:

Search for a specific file type to download (pdf, docx, ppt, …).

• Example: filetype:pdf “customer success metrics”

  You’ll find links to PDF files about CS metrics, and nothing else.

7. Star *

Replace part of your search with anything.

• Example: how to * customer success

This will return results like:

• How to start a customer success department in b2b SaaS

• How to become a Customer Success Manager

• How to land your dream job in Customer Success, etc.

8. Site:

Search within a given website.

Example: productivity site:thecscafe.substack.com

This will search for productivity words in my newsletter.

9. Tilde ~

Get similar content to your search:

• Example: customer success ~courses

Here you get customer success training, classes, coaching, certificates, etc.

10. Location:

Search for news based on location.

• Example: events location:Paris

And that’s a wrap!

Enjoyed the read? I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for your feedback.

I’ll speak to you again next Sunday.

Until then, have an awesome week ahead!