Advanced Google Searching

About using the advanced searching features of Google.

Using Advanced Google Search

Most searches will require, or are improved with, an advanced Google search. 

This can retrieve guidance and policies from:

  • NHS Trusts
  • Integrated Care Boards (ICBs, formerly Clinical Commissioning Groups, CCGs)
  • other sources

Looking beyond bibliographic databases for grey literature is especially important when searching for evidence around health inequalities, owing to underrepresentation of some groups in the literature.

It can be difficult to judge the quality of Google results, so an advanced Google search using limits will allow you to search within trusted organisations only.

To find content from NHS Trusts and related websites, specify the website(s) that you want Google to look within using the “site” and "inurl" limits.

site:

For example, typing:

site:.nhs.uk “health literacy”

into Google’s search bar will retrieve just results where:

  • the phrase “health literacy” is used within
  • websites with URLs end with “.nhs.uk”

You could also try searching with site:.org.uk for charities and non-profit organisations in the UK.

inurl:

Another way to find content including guidance from NHS Trusts, ICB’s or Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) and other organisations is using the “inurl” limit.

For example, typing:

inurl:icb "health inequalities”

into Google’s search bar will retrieve only results where:

  • the phrase “health inequalities” is used within
  • sites which have “ICB” in their URLs

Requesters and their diverse patients may benefit from guidance and policies produced in other countries that touch upon ethnic and cultural topics unique to those groups.

Both the “site” and “inurl” limits let you specify which country you want to retrieve results from, by including that country’s domain suffix in a URL.

For example, typing site:.gov.pk or inurl:.gov.pk with your search terms into Google’s search bar will retrieve only results from Pakistan’s (pk) government website.

For a list of different national URL suffixes please see Country Code Top Level Domains at Wikipedia.

intitle:

To find documents from or about the NHS, you could try using the “intitle” limit.

Typing:

intitle:NHS "health literacy”

into Google’s search bar will retrieve only results with ”NHS” and the phrase “health literacy” in their page titles.

doctype:

Typing:

  • doctype:doc

or

  • doctype:pdf

into Google's search bar will limit your results to only Word or PDF documents. 

Other file extensions are possible, eg, .pptx or .xlsx.

Use these limits in combination to home in on your topic.

Typing site:.gov.uk intitle:NHS "health literacy” into Google’s search bar will retrieve government policies or other governmental  documents with “NHS” in their titles and that also include the phrase “health literacy”.

John Barbrook [email protected] of the University of Lancaster can be contacted for help with advanced Google searching.