Finding Yourself

Have you ever been bored and decided to search your name in Google to see what you would find? Most likely, unless you have a super uncommon name like Batman McStupidson, you will probably pull up hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of results. (In case you're wondering, that one actually got 40 hits. Go figure.)

If I search my name, Westley Clark, I get 1,600,000 hits, and a lot of them refer to General Wesley Clark. (No relation.)

Something a lot of people don't know, is that there are ways to make your search more specific by putting quotes around your search or adding query language syntax operators, such as >= or AND.

If I search my name with quotes, "Westley Clark", my search is narrowed down to 22,600 hits. (I still get references to General Clark, but I feel like this is an abnormal circumstance because he is a famous general that ran for president.)

Ways of narrowing down your search, like this one, can be very helpful when you are searching for something rather vague. As a college student, I know that they come in handy when I'm searching for specific information for a report.

Try it out sometime and I'm sure that you will be pleasantly surprised at how much it can help you find what you are looking for.

Here is a link to a page that explains different ways of narrowing down your search.

Thanks for reading!