When conducting research online, it’s important to find reliable, credible sources. One strategy students can use to achieve this is filtering their search results by a specific domain. In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to search by domain and filter results for credible sources.
Let’s say we want to research dinosaurs. If we simply type “dinosaurs” into the search bar, we’ll get over 55 million results, including games, TV shows, and news articles. While these results may be interesting, they aren’t necessarily helpful for research.
To filter our results, we can add a domain search filter. Simply type “site:” followed by the domain you want to filter by. For reliable sources, we recommend using the domain “.edu,” which stands for education. So, our search filter would be “site:.edu.”
When we add this filter, we get a much more focused set of results. We see sources such as paleobiology.side.edu and the University of California Museum of Paleontology, both of which are reliable educational sources. Our results went down from over 55 million to 187,000.
Besides “.edu,” we can also use “.gov” for government websites or “.org” for organizations. For example, if we search for “site:.gov,” we might find sources like the Dinosaur National Monument from the US National Park Service. And if we search for “site:.org,” we might see the National Museum of Natural History.
Using domain search filters is a simple yet effective way to filter Google search results for trustworthy sources. To get started, just type “site:” followed by the domain you want to filter by. Give it a try the next time you’re conducting research online and see how it refines your results.