Searching the internet can be useful to locate information not published within the main channels of literature indexing or supply. It is best to search within known sites or to use a search engine's advanced search features.
Google Advanced Search has a number of advanced search features which can make a search much more targeted. These features include searching by:
Field searching
To search for a word in the title of your search results use the intitle: command followed by the search term. For example: intitle:rhabdomyolysis
File type
Grey literature is often published online as a PDF or Word document. Using Google's filetype: search will help narrow down the results to these file types. For example: rainfall data filetype:pdf
Document types include:
- Word documents .doc
- PowerPoint files .ppt
- Excel files .xls
- PDFs .pdf
Domain
A Google site search allows you to limit results to one website or domain rather than the entire internet. To perform a site search on Google, enter your search words and add site: in front of the required URL. For example: site:fao.org
The default for a government site is to use .gov and this defaults to a US Government site, to make it an Australian Government site add .au. For example: site: .gov.au
All of these operators can be mixed together as a search. For example: food security site:fao.org filetype:pdf
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