To enter a query, type in a few descriptive words and press Enter (or click the Search button) for a list of relevant web pages. Since Google only returns web pages that contain all the words in your query, refining or narrowing your search is as simple as adding more words to the search terms you have already entered. Your new query will return a smaller subset of the pages Google found for your original "too-broad" query.
Choosing Keywords

For best results, it's important to choose your keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:
- Try the obvious first. If you're looking for information on Picasso, enter "Picasso" rather than "painters".
- Use words likely to appear on a site with the information you want. "Luxury hotel dubuque" gets better results than "really nice places to spend the night in Dubuque".
- Make keywords as specific as possible. "Antique lead soldiers" gets more relevant results than "old metal toys".

Automatic "and" Queries

By default, Google only returns pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms. Keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results. To restrict a search further, just include more terms. For example, to plan a vacation to Hawaii, simply type: vacation hawaii

Automatic Exclusion of Common Words

Google ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Google will indicate if a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box.
If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the "+" sign.)
Another method for doing this is conducting a phrase search, which means putting quotation marks around two or more words. Common words in a phrase search (e.g., "where are you") are included in the search.
For example, to search for Star Wars, Episode I, use:

Star Wars Episode +I
~ OR ~
"Star Wars Episode I"

Capitalization

Google searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for "george washington", "George Washington", and "gEoRgE wAsHiNgToN" will all return the same results.

Word Variations (Stemming)

To provide the most accurate results, Google does not use "stemming" or support "wildcard" searches. In other words, Google searches for exactly the words that you enter in the search box. Searching for "book" or "book*" will not yield "books" or "bookstore". If in doubt, try both forms: "airline" and "airlines," for instance.

Labels: Advanced SEO, Google2009, SEO, SEO guidelines

January

-We kick off January with the launch of Picasa for Mac at Macworld.

-The Vatican launches a You Tube Channel, providing updates from the Pope and Catholic Church.

-Together with the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the Planet Lab Consortium, and academic researchers, we announce Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open platform that provides tools to test broadband connections.

February

-The latest version of Google Earth makes a splash with Ocean, a new feature that provides a 3D look at the ocean floor and information about one of the world's greatest natural resources.

-We introduce Google Latitude, a Google Maps for mobile feature and an iGoogle gadget that lets you share your location with friends and see the approximate location of people who have decided to share their location with you.

-After adding Turkish, Thai, Hungarian, Estonian, Albanian, Maltese, and Galician, Google Translate is capable of automatic translation between 41 languages, covering 98% of the languages read by Internet users.

-Our first message on Twitter gets back to binary: I'm 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010. (Hint: it's a button on our homepage.)

March

-We launch a beta test of interest-based advertising on partner sites and on You Tube. This kind of tailored advertising lets us show ads more closely related to what people are searching for, and it gives advertisers an efficient way to reach those who are most interested in their products or services.

-We release Google Voice to existing Grand Central users. The new application improves the way you use your phone, with features like voicemail transcription and archive and search of all of your SMS text messages.

-We celebrate our San Francisco office's Gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System. We see it as a sign that we're on track with our approach to building environmentally friendly offices.

-The White House holds an online town hall to answer citizens' questions submitted on Google Moderator.

-We launch new iGoogle backdrops inspired by video games, including classics like "Mario," "Zelda," and "Donkey Kong."

-We announce Google Ventures: a venture capital fund aimed at using our resources to support innovation and encourage promising new technology companies.

-Using our transliteration technology, we build and release a feature in Gmail that makes it easy to type messages in Indian languages like Hindi or Malayalam.

-Google Suggest goes local with keyword suggestions for 51 languages in 155 domains.April

-Our April Fool's Day prank this year is CADIE, our "Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity" who spends the day taking over various Google products before self-destructing.

-We announce an update to search which enables people to get localized results even if they don't include a location in their search query.

-For India's 15th general election, we launch the Google India Elections Centre, where people can check to see if they're registered to vote, find their polling place, as well as read news and other
information.

-Over 90 musicians from around the world — including a Spanish guitarist, a Dutch harpist and a Lithuanian birbyne player — perform in the first-ever YouTube Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

-We rebuild and redesign Google Labs as well as release two new Labs: Similar Image search and Google News Timeline. Later in the month, we introduce Toolbar Labs.

-We begin to show Google profile results at the bottom of U.S. search pages when people search for names, giving people more control over what others find about them when they search on Google.

-We release 11 short films about Google Chrome made by Christoph Niemann, Motion Theory, Steve Mottershead, Go Robot, Open, Default Office, Hunter Gatherer, Lifelong Friendship Society, SuperFad, Jeff&Paul, and Pantograph.

May

-To clear brush and reduce fire hazard in the fields near our Mountain View headquarters, we rent some goats from a local company. They help us trim the grass the low-carbon way!

-At our second Searchology event, we introduce a few new search features, including the Search Options panel and rich snippets in search results.

-We launch Sky Map for Android, which uses your Android phone to help you identify stars, constellations and planets.

-Christin Engelberth, a sixth grader at Bernard Harris Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, wins the second U.S. Doodle 4 Google competition with her doodle "A new beginning."

-At our second annual Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, we preview Google Wave, a new communication and collaboration tool.

Labels: Google milestones, Google2009, Milestones 2009