Many websites provide current and historical information about local geographies, and many are "authoritative" sources such as governments and civic organizations. While these may be useful as supplemental information, keep in mind that these sources are generally not peer-reviewed.
Use quotes to search for an exact phrase or to require a single word. “green buildings” | "sustainability"
Use OR (capitalized) to search for sites that may use one word instead of another. Without the OR, the search defaults to AND and finds only sites that include both terms. buildings OR architecture
Use quotes and OR to search for either of multiple phrases. "green buildings" OR "sustainable architecture"
Add a dash (-) before a word to exclude all results that include that word; can also be used before a site to exclude results from that site. This is especially useful for words with multiple meanings, like green the color and green the environmental term. green buildings -paint | sustainability -site:wikipedia.org (this will exclude wikipedia hits)
Use site: to limit your search to a specific website or domain. “public health” site:cdc.gov (this will return hits only from the CDC website) | “public health” site:gov (this will return hits from any .gov website)
Use parentheses to combine and search for similar terms. (green OR sustainable) (buildings OR architecture)
Use filetype: to limit your search to a specific type of document. "green buildings" filetype:pdf (this will only find .pdf files; other filetype choices include html, ppt, and doc; note that you can also exclude certain filetypes by using the dash before the word filetype)
Combine two or more of these for power searching. “(green OR sustainable) (buildings OR architecture)" -“new york” (site:.gov OR site:.edu) filetype:pdf
This custom Google search box searches only websites of government entities in San Diego County, including cities, county and SANDAG. Use this instead of the regular Google interface when searching for San Diego government information for more relevant results. Created by Annelise Sklar.
Since 2007, UCSD's San Diego Local Governments Web Archive has regularly captured the web content of San Diego county government agencies (e.g. City of San Diego, City of Chula Vista, County of San Diego, etc.) and semi-official local organizations (e.g. League of Women Voters of San Diego) to preserve access to historical information.
