Google

There are a few really simple to use, but advanced features that make searching a lot easier:

"quotes search for full strings" - put quotes around your search strings to search only for that exact phrase
Example: "things you wish you knew"

+ - use plus signs in front of words to make sure they are added. Google will sometimes remove words like: a, an, the, and, of, then and other common words that don't mean much to the search. If you want these as part of your search use +
Example: you +are smart

- - use minus to make sure a word is not included. If you want to search for tv, but nothing that has anything to do with plasma tvs type:
tv -plasma

site:yoursite.com - use the prefix 'site:' to search only the pages of a specific site.
Example: site:google.com search tips