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Using the Tilde ~ to Include Synonyms In Google Searches
What if you have a specific topic that you would like to learn about, but you can’t think of all the words associated with it? Let’s say you want to learn about all the different types of sports in existence. As I explained in my last post, you could use the OR operator and starting typing the following:
basketball OR baseball OR hockey OR football OR soccer OR weightlifting OR cricket
You’re probably staring at your screen in disbelief and asking “Isn’t there an easier way to do that?” If that last sentence applies to you, then imagine me speaking a comforting “Yes!”
In order to do that, you could simply enter the following into a Google search box:
Contrast that with the above entry and you can see how much time that the simple tilde (~) can save! If you were to perform the above search, you would get the following page of results:
As you can see, Google returned two generic sports pages that talk about all sports, then it returned pages on individual sports such as hockey, baseball, and football. Had we simply searched for sports without the ~ in front, then we would have come up with pages that only match the keyword sports, and it would’ve looked a little something like this:
This Google tip can also help you find words that you wanted to know about, but couldn’t think of in the heat of the moment before you pressed the search button. For example, if you want to learn more about jogging, but can’t remember that a lot of people call that activity running, you can just search for ~jogging, as shown below.
Perhaps to your surprise, you discover that a majority of websites have chosen to use the word running rather than jogging. Don’t believe me? Have a look for yourself below:
You’ll notice that the first site is called Runner’s World.com. Below, you’ll be able to see that we would have missed out on this site altogether if we had just typed in jogging into the Google search box.
In Summary, just remember that if you put a tilde in front of the word, you will be able to get more search results because Google will also be searching for words that it thinks are similar to your search keyword. You can also put a tilde in front of more than one word in a search and watch the results pile up!
Just remember that you have to put the tilde right in front of the word, don’t put a space between the tilde and the word!
If you have any questions, feel free to discuss this article or ask any questions in the comment area below.
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