Why most people search Google ineffectively
The average person types a question into Google the same way they'd ask a friend — in plain conversational language. This works fine for simple lookups, but falls apart for anything specific. Searching 'best way to treat a pulled hamstring' returns a flood of generic health sites. Searching 'hamstring strain recovery protocol site:physio.org OR site:pubmed.gov' returns clinical resources from sources that actually know what they're talking about. The gap between these two searches is a few operators and about ten seconds of thinking. This prompt teaches you both.
The operators worth knowing
Google has a handful of search operators that most people never use. 'site:' limits results to a specific domain. Quotes force an exact phrase match. 'before:' and 'after:' filter by date. Minus sign excludes a term. 'filetype:pdf' finds documents. 'intitle:' searches only page titles. None of these are secret — they're documented on Google's own support pages — but they're rarely taught outside of research contexts. One prompt that shows you which to use for your specific search is faster than reading a tutorial.