Searching within Search Results

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Like a compact telescope, Google can keep looking within itself to narrow a search. From any search results page, you can conduct a secondary search that uses your first search results as a mini-index. Your second set of search results exist in the sites that make up the first set.

This feature is nearly hidden at the bottom of each search results page. Keyword boxes containing your search terms are located at the top and bottom of results pages, but only the bottom one sports the Search within results link, as shown in Figure 16-1.

Figure 16-1: At the bottom of each search results page you can start a search within a search.

When you click the Search within results link, Google presents a new search page with an empty keyword box, as shown in Figure 16-2. It would be preferable if Google let you launch a new search within the results of a previous search, directly from the bottom of the results page. Alas, you must trudge through the new page with its blank keyword box, enter your new keywords there, and press Enter.

Figure 16-2: Enter new keywords to narrow a search in progress.

Figures 16-1 and 16-2 show the first two legs of a three-part search that started with england cottage rentals, telescoped downward to cotswolds, and finally narrowed to bed and breakfast (Google automatically removed the and). By this process, the search results were narrowed from about 29,000 to about 1100, and from there to 477.

Tip 

Google's keyword syntax regarding searches within searches is simple: Google simply adds the second set of keywords to the first set and the third set to the combined first and second sets. So, I could have accomplished the preceding example in one step with the following keyword string:
england cottage rentals cotswolds bed breakfast

I'm not likely to think ahead in such detail, though, so the Search within results feature is useful.

Remember 

Google enforces a ten-word limit on keyword entries for any single search, and searches within results count cumulatively. So you may continue narrowing downward up to ten times, given one keyword per search. Google starts eliminating keywords after you've reached ten.

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