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. 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
8. 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
9. Word Definitions:
If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the "define:" command. Example: define:plethora
10. Types of numbers: Google algorithms can recognize patterns in numbers you enter, so you can search for:
Telephone area codes Vehicle ID number (US only) UPC codes
Patent numbers (US only) Even stock quotes (using the stock symbol)
11. Get Local Time: Type in What time is it followed by any city to get the current time.
12. Convert Currency, Metrics, Bytes and More: Google has a built-in converter calculator. You can enter quarter cup in teaspoons, seconds in a year, 5 US dollars in Euros and countless others.
13. See Images of People, Objects, Etc.: Type in a search term, and click on images to see photos of the results.
14. Wildcard. The "*" symbol is a wildcard. This is useful if you're trying to find the lyrics to a song, but can't remember the exact lyrics. [Can't * me love lyrics] will return the Beatles song you're looking for. It's also useful for finding stuff only in certain domains, such as educational information: ["dumb little man" research *.edu].
15. Advanced search. If you can't remember any of these operators, you can always use Google's advanced search.
16. Vertical search. Instead of searching for a term across all pages on the web, search within a specialized field. Google has a number of specific searches, allowing you to search within blogs, news, books, and much more:
|
