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Surfing the Internet is wonderful, if you can find the web pages you seek. While each search engine has a unique set of search features, the following three tips can be used safely on any of them.

Find Web Pages that Contain Exact Phrases
To focus your search on an exact phrase, enter the phrase in double quotes. This can be useful when searching for famous sayings or specific names. Without quotes the list contains over 4,300,000 pages. With quotes the list contains approximately 2,300,000 pages. Try the two links below to see the difference:

web design versus "web design"

Find Web Pages that Contain Specific Words
If you require that some words or phrases appear in your search results, use a + sign before the word or phrase that you must have. The following link generates a list of approximately 87,000 pages:

"web design" +usability

Find Web Pages that DO NOT Contain Specific Words
If certain terms must not appear in your results, eliminate pages containing those words or phrases by placing a - sign before the word or phrase. The following example will remove the pdf file web pages (for those who do not have Adobe Acrobat) from the list, so now the list contains approximately 75,000 pages.

"web design" +usability -pdf

As you see from our example, you can add as many qualifiers as you need. Give it a try!