Have you ever done a Google search on a topic only to discover that most of the search results consisted of pages that were created years ago?
That isn’t always a problem when searching for “facts” because many facts just don’t change over time.
For example, if you type largest planet in our solar system into Google, the answer you receive should be Jupiter whether the article you click on was written in 1998 or 2023. After all, Jupiter hasn’t gotten smaller and the other planets haven’t grown any larger.
On the other hand, if you search for latest medical research some of the pages returned by Google could possibly be woefully out of date.
Luckily, there’s an easy way to ensure that your Google search results are at least fairly recent…Simply add the current year to your search query.
For example, instead of searching for latest medical research, search for latest medical research 2023 instead. Most of the articles returned in the search results for that query will likely be from either 2023 or another very recent year, and almost all of the top results should be.
And now, a couple of caveats:
1 – If it’s very early in the year (January 11 for example) you should probably search for the previous year since there probably won’t be many relevant articles available from the current year.
2 – Be aware that this tactic isn’t fool-proof. It’s quite possible (even likely) that there will be at least a few older pages returned by your search, especially on page 2 of the search results and beyond.
Bottom line: While Google usually does a pretty good job at listing the most recent search results first, they aren’t perfect.
Simply adding the current year to your search query will usually ensure that most of the pages listed in the search results will be a few months old at the most.
Bonus tip: This post offers several other powerful tips for searching Google like a pro.