Here's help for seniors and boomers who didn't grow up with the internet. Kids learn how to search Google, Yahoo, or Bing in school. Any senior or boomer can learn how to use search tips to find people info, health information, travel discounts, drug interactions, buy clothing, learn about reverse mortgages, or anything he or she needs. It's easy. Anyone can google as well as a 12 year old.
Here are the most common Google techniques.
How to Search Google: Using the Minus Sign
Example: An online senior wants to find the best place to retire in Florida. To find the answer, he or she would go to Google.com and type:
- best places to retire in Florida
Well, one of the answers might be Venice, Florida.
If, however, the senior didn't want to live in the same city as his or her former spouse (who is obnoxiously remarried and living happily in Venice Florida), the senior could type a shorthand form of "minus Venice". Then, the Google answers would be about places like Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda, Brevard County, and other places where the evil ex doesn't live.
The way to type this into a Google search is:
- best places to retire in Florida -Venice
This means "minus Venice" to the computer. The minus sign must have a space before it. There must be NO space between the minus sign and the word Venice. Now the results would include only articles without the word “Venice".
Help for Seniors, Boomers, Anyone - Using Quotation Marks
Example: An online senior is looking for a friend named Adam W. Smith from somewhere in Pennsylvania. A first try might be to type this into Google.com:
- Adam W. Smith Pennsylvania
However, the results from this search are no good. Many of the websites that show up are about people with the wrong names. The senior could add quotes to the search words, so that the words in the box on Google.com would be changed to:
- “Adam W. Smith” Pennsylvania
The phrase in quotes is now treated like one word. Using quotation marks weeds out a lot of wrong answers because the webpages which appear in the search will be webpages in which Adam W. Smith is written exactly like it is in the parentheses. Quotes can be used for any group of words, like “movies in San Jose” or “Melbourne sightseeing”.
Search Tips to Find Current Information
Example: To find recent information about the fires in Melbourne, one could type this into Google.com:
- Fires in Melbourne
Then, click the “Google Search” button. Stay on the page that comes up next and find the “Search” button at the top of the page. Just to the right of the "Search" button, there are some tiny blue words. Click on the top tiny blue words which say "Advanced Search". A summary:
- Click "Advanced Search"
On the next page, look for the blue words “+ Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more". This phrase is at the bottom of the page on the left. Ignore everything else. Click on the words "+Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more". A new box will say "anytime". Click "anytime" to change it to the "past 24 hours" (or whatever time period sounds right). Finish up by clicking the "advanced search" button on the bottom of the page. A Summary:
- Change the date by changing "anytime" to the "past 24 hours"
- Click "advanced search"
How to Google - Searching within a Specific Website
Example: A senior woman wants to buy the book, Travel Therapy, and she knows that Amazon.com is a good place to buy books. The woman could go to Amazon's website and search in Amazon herself, or she could let Google do the search for her (from the main Google website). This is the formula to use, "site:website.com" and then type what one is looking for. So, this is what the woman would type into the main page of Google.com:
- site:amazon.com Travel Therapy
- Notice that there is a colon after "site" and no space
Learn how to make text larger on computer screen or on printer printout.
These search tips will help anyone find things pronto. To find information online, just remember these tips for how to search the internet: The minus sign, the quotation marks, and the site webpage.com format, and that will be a big help for seniors. Special computer glasses are also a big help. Hey, Google help for seniors is here.
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