A Little Google Tip

Updated December 3rd, 2015.

When you search with Google you sometimes get MORE than what you want, and it clutters up the results. For example, suppose you’re looking for Mac help in Austin, Texas. You type in…

Mac help Austin Texas

… and you get a pretty good list. But, there are a lot of repair places listed, and you don’t need repairs, you need help. You can make the “repairs” items go away by modifying your search like so (the minus sign is the key):

Mac help Austin Texas -repair

Pretty good. But, it turns out there’s a cosmetic company called MAC and they’re showing up at the top of your search. Change it again, using the minus sign:

Mac help Austin Texas -repair -cosmetics

That just about does it (though, at this writing, the top item is a help-wanted ad, where someone needs a chicken sitter! I do not make this stuff up).

So, what have we learned? Use the minus sign in front of words that you DON’T want included in the search results. Be sure that the minus is preceded by a space, and that there is no space after the minus. You want this:

-repair

not this:

– repair

Get it?

Bonus Tip: Google doesn’t care about the capitalization. So mac help austin texas -repair -cosmetics gives the same results as Mac help Austin Texas -repair -cosmetics. Save yourself a tiny bit of work there.

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