The Magic Google Search Box

Posted by jake on 24th February, 2010 ·

: Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Every on the planet knows what the term “google it” means but if you like most folks you only type in a query and think that’s all there is to the number one search engine. On the other hand if you are on the other end of the spectrum and a real techno geek book this and shot it to the newbie who is struggling

to find something on Google search. These tips are by no means exhaustive as Google is as broad and deep as the Pacific ocean and growing larger by the week.

However, if you master these tips you are going to be in the top 5% of Google users and will be able to carry your lap top to cocktail parties and impress your friends. I’ve kept the descriptions of the search tips intentionally terse as you’re likely to grasp most of these simply by looking at the example from Google anyways.

1. To differentiate between two terms simply put in OR between the two terms.

e.g. tree services OR landscaping

2. Calculator just type in your simple equation and it will do the calculation instantly.

3. Site Specific Search

Sometimes you want to find a specific for a specific phrase in content.
The easiest way to do this is use “site:xyzsite.com” function.

e:g “network marketing” site:www.smallbusinessisbig.com

4. Explicitly searches: To isolate a term put quotation markets

e.g. “internet marketing”.

5. Synomyns: e.g.”small business”~local business

6. Specific Document Types: To find results that are a specific type a modifier called
“filetype:”. Let’s say you want to find more about brake problems with Toyotas.

e.g. “problems with Toyotas”filetype:ppt

7. ‘date search’ – there you find the latest articles to a specific keyword.
e.g. If you want to find out if there is new content about your person,
site or whatever the latest sites will be up on top

8. The secret minus (-) trick
If you want to exclude a term in your search results you can simply use the (-)
symbol in front of the word you want to exclude.

e.g. police officers – detectives

9. Ticker Symbol:For current financial and a snapshot of a stock use.

e.g. GOOG

10. Dictionary Definitions: You can find the definition of a word by adding “define” to your search.

e.g. define:obnoxious

11. Area Code Lookup: Very simply just enter a area and the results will tell you where it origintes.

12. Not used often but very valuable. It is called a numeric range and narrows the results between two numbers or
dates. By using a A-C modifier, such as prices, dates and other sequences of numbers.

e.g war 1049..2001

13. Temperature Converter 54F in C
also: “100cm in inches”, “100us gallons in uk gallons”, “100bar in psi” and multiple other conversions

14. “Time in Phoenix” will give time anywhere on the planet.

15. Currency converter: 100 GBP in USD

16. Tucson: info will give info on wikipedia

17. If you are having trouble understanding a result
insert e.g. hair:extensions.com Google tips

18. “inurl.com” command can be entered when there is not a definitive website.

19. From your cell phone you can search google by sending search query to
466-45(goo-gl) They will send you the top result as a text

20. Very Sneaky but if you hit a dead link you can go to Google search page and click on “cache”,
you’ll get the content of the page as stored by Google. This page will expire eventually so save
it when you get it.

21. You can see your complete search history when you are logged in your Google account.

22. Another variation on numeric changes is called “Google Sets” that allows to create a range of values.
http://labs.google.com/sets

23. Patents can be researched by going to “http://www.google.com/patents” for some interesting results.

24. Weather can be seen at: “weather (zip code)” for the forecast in your area e.g. “weather 85710″
Also <city name> works if you don’t have the zip

25. Website crossengine dot com allows you to query multiple Google services.

26. You can also find “blogs” or “videos” etc. and the term – football, Detroit.

27. Type in the ingredients in your fridge and google will cook you dinner.
No not really but it will display recipes.

28. Lots of traffic comes to http://wwwPhotoHand.com through google image searches – Another useful part
of the sites to be optimized.

29. Sometimes it’s helpful to click the “Advanced Search” button and change the language or region the pages
are coming from (though I don’t think there’s a way to specify that by your query)
Also allintitle:[your query] or allinanchor:[your query] are helpful when you get a ton of crap in your
search, or you think the keywords you’re using are liable to be in the title or links to the page
(as opposed to the body of the page you’re looking for). Last, if you find your query has a lot of little
words (at, the, is) but they are important to your search, put a + sign in front of them and Google will
make sure to match them instead of throwing them out.

30. Typing:lyric after a song title in your search will generally yield the lyrics to almost any song, for instance:
I wanna hold your hand:lyric Of course if there’s more than one song with the same name you might be able to narrow
it down a bit more with the addition of a few words from the song that are less common.

31. Limit your search to include faces. You can do it via the advanced options.
Discuss other tricks here – http://www.search1x.com !

32. When in doubt, ask a question. Boil your query into a few keywords. Just type your question and search for that.
Google usually figures out the keywords and gives the answer. Simple questions only.

33. The define function is very interesting. You can also use m-w.com because most entries include etymology.
However, there are many technical entries for which m-w wishes to charge.
The Google define function is more like a wiki, useful most of the time and indispensable the rest.

34. Prices: Let’s say you want to find a shirt in the price range $10 to 20.. Google shirt $10..20

Cheers!

Most of these tips can be dug out in the below links.

http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html
http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=searchguides.html&ctx=basics
http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=searchguides.html&ctx=advanced