I spend a lot of time on Google. Whether it’s work or personal, I’m always trying to be efficient and get the right results for my searches. Over the years I’ve picked up a few tricks that I thought I would share.

site:example.com search term here
Looking for a specific topic on a specific site? This search operator allows you to search directly on a specific URL:

Wildcards
Add in an asterisk as a placeholder for any unknown or wildcard terms. Used with quotation marks it finds variations of that exact phrase. Example: "a * saved is a * earned"

Remove words from results
When you use a dash (or I think of it as a minus sign) before a word, it excludes results with that word. This is useful for words with multiple meanings, like mountain lion the Apple operating system and mountain lion the animal. If you were interested in only learning about the animal, this search query would be helpful: mountain lion speed -apple

related:example.com
Find sites that are similar to a URL. If you search for related sites to etsy.com, you'll find other sites that also sell artisan goods. Example: related:etsy.com

Want to learn more? Check out these resources:
Google - Punctuation, Symbols & Operators in Search
MOZ - 25 Killer Combos for Google's Site: Operator
Google - Using Search Operators

Do you have any other favorites not listed here? If so, leave it in the comments.