Google spends millions of dollars developing more algorithms, but Google Search still can't identify what you don't know. Sometimes even though you know the information you're looking for is somewhere on the web, you can't find the right search terms to find it.
If you don't know what to search for on Google Search, there are a few tricks that can prove very useful.
Today, we'll look at a few different search methods to help you search for something you don't know how to describe.
Wildcard search
Google's wildcard search is useful if:
- You don't know a specific word in a phrase you're looking for, or
- you want to find many results around a key phrase.
For wildcard search, you must type an asterisk (*) in place of the search term you are unsure of.
For example, let’s say you’re looking for a song you heard on the radio, but you can’t find a specific word. You could type “smoke * water.” Google’s results will show you results that match the phrase. You’ll see results like: “Smoke on the water,” “Smoke on the Water (2012 Remaster) by Deep Purple,” “Smoke, how water filters help reduce it,” and many more.
Similarly, you can use wildcards in Google search to search for results around a topic. For example, if you search for “trusted * provider,” the search results will show you “trusted internet provider,” “trusted web hosting provider,” “trusted electricity provider,” and more.
Word exception
If you want to search for something but the results you see are not relevant, you can exclude specific words.
The ability to exclude words is especially useful if the list of results you see is dominated by irrelevant results. You can exclude one or more words by typing a minus (-) immediately before the word. 
For example, if you search for “Bayern,” almost all of the results on the first few pages show links to FC Bayern Munich, the German soccer team. To see results about the city rather than the team, you can type “Bayern -football -soccer -fc” to force Google to skip any soccer results.
Results in a series of numbers
Adding two periods (..) between your search terms will return results from a specific range of numbers. This search is perfect if you want to search for something in a specific price range or at a specific point in time, but you don't know what to search for.
For example, imagine you're trying to find something about 19th-century Greek history. If you type “Greece 1800..1900” into Google Search, you'll get a list of results for the country during that period.
Similarly, you can use the same trick to find something you want to buy that fits your budget. For example, type in “smartphone €100..€200” and you will see product listings and articles about smartphones that cost between €100 and €200.
Around if you don't know most of a sentence?
The solution is to use the term around. Simply type in an estimated number of missing words in parentheses, for example, around (10).
So, let's search for a phrase by Odysseus Elytis and specifically, something he said that contains "an olive tree, a vine and a ship". The search term would therefore be: an olive tree, a vine and a ship around (10)
“If you dismantle Greece, in the end you will see that you are left with an olive tree, a vineyard and a boat. Which means: with so many more you rebuild it.”
In the search results, Google will locate the excerpt you want.
Do you know of any other tricks that can make our lives easier? We'd love to see them in the comments of this post.
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