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- zeldafan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+40If you’re like me, you probably use Google many times a day. But, chances are, unless you are a technology geek, you probably still use Google in its simplest form. If your current use of Google is limited to typing a few words in, and changing your query until you find what you’re looking for, then I’m here to tell you that there’s a better way – and it’s not hard to learn. On the other hand, if you are a technology geek, and can use Google like the best of them already, then I suggest you bookmark this article. You’ll then have it on hand when you are ready to pull your hair out in frustration when watching a neophyte repeatedly type in basic queries in a desperate attempt to find something.
The following tips are based on my own experience and things that I actually find useful. The list is by no means comprehensive. But, I assure you that by learning and using the 12 tips below, you’ll rank up there with the best of the Google experts out there. I’ve kept the descriptions intentionally terse as you’re likely to grasp most of these simply by looking at the example anyways.
12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert
1. Explicit Phrase: Lets say you are looking for content about internet marketing. Instead of just typing internet marketing into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.
Example: “internet marketing”
2. Exclude Words: Lets say you want to search for content about internet marketing, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term advertising. To do this, simply use the “-“ sign in front of the word you want to exclude.
Example Search: internet marketing -advertising
3. Site Specific Search: Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the “site:somesite.com” modifier.
Example: “internet marketing” site:www.smallbusinesshub.com
4. Similar Words and Synonyms: Let’s say you are want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words or synonyms. To do this, use the “~” in front of the word.
Example: “internet marketing” ~professional
5. Specific Document Types: If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier “filetype:”. For example, you might want to find only PowerPoint presentations related to internet marketing.
Example: “internet marketing” filetype:ppt
6. This OR That: By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. (Note: The OR has to be capitalized).
Example: internet marketing OR advertising
7. Phone Listing: Let’s say someone calls you on your mobile number and you don’t know how it is. If all you have is a phone number, you can look it up on Google using the phonebook feature.
Example: phonebook:617-555-1212 (note: the provided number does not work – you’ll have to use a real number to get any results).
8. Area Code Lookup: If all you need to do is to look-up the area code for a phone number, just enter the 3-digit area code and Google will tell you where it’s from.
Example: 617
9. Numeric Ranges: This is a rarely used, but highly useful tip. Let’s say you want to find results that contain any of a range of numbers. You can do this by using the X..Y modifier (in case this is hard to read, what’s between the X and Y are two periods. This type of search is useful for years (as shown below), prices or anywhere where you want to provide a series of numbers.
Example: president 1940..1950
10. Stock (Ticker Symbol): Just enter a valid ticker symbol as your search term and Google will give you the current financials and a quick thumb-nail chart for the stock.
Example: GOOG
11. Calculator: The next time you need to do a quick calculation, instead of bringing up the Calculator applet, you can just type your expression in to Google.
Example: 48512 * 1.02
12. Word Definitions: If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the “define:” command.
Example: define:plethora
Hope this proves useful in your future Google searches. If there are any of your favorite Google power tips that I’ve missed, please feel free to share them in the comments. - dominic2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11dugg for the similar words tip
- tracerrx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Dugg... For the ability to forward this link to my non-computer-friendly family members and friends -- Maybe it will save a phone call to their unpaid personal 24/7/365 tech support line -- i.e. ME..
- BobbyOnions, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14You're their personal 0.00939334638 tech support line?
- bobcrotch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10And its dead.
- EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Why are users expected to exert themselves to use a search engine? Isn't it the job of the software to do the searching for us? Rather than making me work harder, why not develop a search engine that searches better?"
Until a search engine can read your mind, advanced ways of describing what it is you're looking for will always be helpful. The ideal balance is to provide an idiot proof interface for basic features, but allow advanced users perform more complicated tasks. I've found Google's balance in this area to be pretty good. It should also be noted they provide a GUI interface to most of the advanced features. - eradicator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The calculator part should have talked about units/currency conversion, like:
72 inches in cm
100 USD in JPY - carefreeliving, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Similar word tip is useful. But, article didn't talk about the wildcard option (using * to replace a word). That's useful too, but may be too much for newbies.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The unit conversion is one of the best features of google, in my opinion. I am an engineering major, and you have no idea how many times I have to convert miles to centimeters, or cubic feet to mL. It's gold. ( feet^3 to ml by the way for anyone who doesn't know this method).
One other real great use of google is, when I find a song that I like but do not know the name, I take an exact lyric that I remember and type "lyrics" AND "*insert the lyrics here*" and usually am met with some great results. - ericdano, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3well, you don't want to be too specific. Sometimes, if you are too specific, you can miss what you are looking for. Best way to Google is to find the core words you need to use. And if that doesn't work, use a similar term for what you are looking for, ie: rephrase it. If you can rephrase something, you can sometimes find some things that you'd never expect but are totally relevant to what you are looking for.
- Wonderkind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You're new here.
Actually, it's quite common. Often pages referred to get what is called the "Digg effect". They shut down because a thousand Diggers descend on the page. Then no one can access it. One way to fix that is to copy the test here.
Zeldafan didn't take credit, and I doubt anyone would give it to him/her without checking first. - almighty, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4This is seriously old news, but since so many people haven't seen this here are a few more good links. I try to use these as much as I can.
http://www.google.com/help/operators.html
http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html - snerge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3To me,
12 Quick Tips To Search Google "Like An Expert"
is different than
"Google Expert"
And if you look at the "Expert" definition in a dictionary, you will notice that anybody COULD be an expert at querying Google.
Anyway, this is the way I see it, English is not my primary language. - dralezero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like how sometimes Google puts movie release dates at the top. "casino royale dvd release date" - shows dvd release and "casino royale release date" - show theater release. It doesn't work on all movies but usually you can see the dates in result descriptions anyways.
- inactive, on 01/10/2008, -0/+1That's great
http://www.nasavo.com
http://www.nasavo.com/forex
http://www.nasavo.com/acne
http://car.nasavo.com
http://health.bryansoft.com
http://hyip.ej.am
http://tire.ej.am
http://car.ej.am
http://www.vrid.net
http://laptop.vrid.net
http://projector.vrid.net - sirmasterboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Why not just use http://www.google.com/advanced_search Doesn't that include all of this stuff...
- kettle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@adjustafresh
Absolutely right. Why should I have to waste my time trying to master Google? Lame-o. A truly good search engine should understand my natural language queries, and not force me to learn their language in order to get things done. No excuses for 'until then..' - TokenUser, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Tip #13. Search Google Groups ... because not everything comes from the intarwebs.
- kizio, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Well... Seems to be vain for me... http://catszone.blogspot.com
- nonchallant0819, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0This is a great story... found this one through http://www.google.com
___________________________________
http://www.TopNotchCarpentry.com - dhanediesil, on 04/17/2008, -0/+0Great tips! Highly useful for anyone who goes to google more that 20x a day
- scuzzman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2No mirrors caught it. Anyone feel like dipping into their cache?
Edit: Nevermind... Didn't see zeldafan up top... - carefreeliving, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Totally agree. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to watch amateurs search on Google without knowing some of the basics.
- alewin77, on 12/15/2008, -0/+0This is a great tip if you want to improve your searching. http://www.TheNextAffiliateIdols.com/
- shjuxx, on 11/26/2007, -0/+0We trust you will find your visit here enlightening. This site is all about http://www.springstreetfloral.com and contains background information, current data, the future of http://www.springstreetfloral.com and valuable other data and resources. We have worked to create the most solid and helpful site with lots of information on http://www.shjux.com . This is the beginning of your adventure with http://www.carussin.com . All you wanted to know about it is here. Starting now, you have all the information, data and resources on http://www.cromalinsupport.com , available at your fingertips. Browse through this site and you'll find all you need here.
- Rejuevie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Oh yeah just paste that in the google box. You'd be amaze as to what people leave on their site.
- Williamk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is very helpful.Thx for the post.
- Rejuevie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I often use this to find software, mp3s, or just about anything on someone's site.
-inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:"index of" mp3 "mary j blige" - craum, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wish google had a "near" function. This is a variation on the "explicit phrase" function, where you specify the proximity in which your two keywords must fall. "periodic near 10 table" would return all the pages where periodic was within 10 words of table. "periodic near 1 table" is the same as "periodic table".
- NerdOfPrey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The angle-brackets pipe/OR character combination is useful given a phrase-search such as:
"until the end of the [world|universe|race]"
...which will return matches for any sentence that culminates with one of the words 'world', 'universe' or 'race'. - ericdano, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Watching people who don't know how to Google is like watching Bill Clinton explain that he did not have sex with that woman, Monica......It is just good fun. Like watching a cat try to attack something in a TV. That kind of fun.
- ASVxxxxxxx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Bound for forwarding glory!
- ThreeDee912, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1It's back online. "Thank you Digg users, you have swamped our regular server :-) Please enjoy reading this copy of our article"
- jestrella, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/
- jordan314, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1dugg for numeric ranges.
- justinjohnson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0If you're using firefox and have it set to show suggestions in the search box, the calculator will give results as a "suggestion". I thought that was pretty neat and use it all the time.
- PWnet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1That wiki article is very informative. Really helped me.
- Chestnut3499, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1ahhh, link's already dead. Anyone that can lead me to a mirror?
Thanks! - snerge, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Shouldn't example #2 be :
Example Search: "Internet marketing" -advertising
instead of
Example Search: Internet marketing -advertising
?
If we refer to his first tip ... ? (That's how I do it ....) - Kupo03, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Site is dead....
- RockStarr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Google Cheat Sheet: http://www.adelaider.com/google/
- RockStarr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0A comprehensive Google Cheat Sheet: http://www.adelaider.com/google/
- Ann110461, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0I don't think it is appropriate to copy and paste the entire article here - as Zeldafan did. Unless Z is the author - in which case they should state that.
Bit surprised that no one else thought that the comment was inappropriate. Perhaps they did not realize it. The original content creators deserve a little appreciation / encouragement.
Interestingly, the site which has posted the original article, also leaves out the author's name from the first page. You only see it when you post comments.
That is yet another example of screwing others while benefiting personally - a great principle that no tech. innovation will fix. - shelter, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Now getting: Error: 400 Bad Request
:( - Palmer586, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Reminds me of the guide I did a while ago: http://www.howtousea.com/search_engine
Still a good guide and nice to see others spreading the Google knowledge!
People need to learn to Google first and ask later, methinks. - Sinn3r, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0great stuff :)
- Spizzat2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Coral caught it, but it's a bit slow
http://www.smallbusinesshub.com.nyud.net:8080/blog/tabid/6307/bid/1264/12-Quick-Tips-To-Search-Google-Like-An-Expert.aspx - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1This would be about the time people need this one
digg me up - esuomikim, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Wow, I didn't know the "define:" and "~phrase" stuff...one could learn something every day...
- Rivetgeek, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1For good google queries check out
http://johnny.ihackstuff.com/ghdb.php -
Show 51 - 56 of 56 discussions
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