We’ve all been there!

Searching the web more effectively doesn’t really take much effort.

Plus, most of them haveadvanced optionsyou can use to make an even better ultra-targeted search.

Google Search results for coffee in Detroit

Firefox’s ‘find in page’ results.

For example, enteringcoffeewhen trying to find coffee shops in Michigan would provide far too many unnecessary results.

Typingcat, when you’re in need of a drawing of a black cat, is just as unhelpful.

The same is true for the second half.

Google Search with quotes for Los Angeles apartments for rent

Using quotes is ideal for finding very specific content, and it’ssupposedto cut down on the results you see.

Start with fewer words, and build up from there.

Use an Appropriate Search Engine

Not all search engines are created equally.

Two search engine paths illustration

This web search tip involvesGoogle’s “site” search option.

Say you’re searching for Tom Ford, but you get lots of results for Ford Motors.

Not all web pages are cached, butGoogle provides a simple way to check.

Google site search results for social media on Lifewire.com

However, the cache option on Google doesn’t work for really old web pages.

A simple example can be seen with Yahoo Search.

A video search is similar, but lets you choose the length, resolution, and source.

Google Search results for Tom Ford

Lots of web search tools have advanced options.

you’re free to see some examples in our list ofBing’s advanced search tricksarticle.

A handy advanced search option that works on Google is to find files.

Wayback Machine timeline

You canuse Google to find fileslike PDFs, Word docs, and other kinds.

A wildcard might be the asterisk (*), hashtag (#), or question mark (?

), but the asterisk is the most common.

Yahoo search for forest wallpaper

Fortunately, every web internet tool lets you do a keyword search on that page.

Most mobile browsers support a find function, too, usually hidden away in the menu.

This will highlight every instance of it on the page and let you quickly jump to each line.

Google wildcard search example

Google isn’t the only one out there.

Bing,Yahoo,Startpage.com,Yandex,Ask.com, andDuckDuckGoare a few examples.

If you’re not sure which one to use, considerDogpile.

Firefox’s find on page search box

Firefox’s ‘find in page’ results.