Google Search
Tips and Tricks
Tip Number One:
The first thing you must do to
generate a productive search is think. You need to think about what it
is you really want. You really have to search Google for the
words or
phrases that will be on the page you want
, not for a description of
the page or website. So if you are looking for a comparative review of
wireless telephones, you will probably get more results from a list of
names such as SmartPhone, Audiovox, Motorola, and so on, than the words
"comparative review of wireless phones".
Tip Number Two:
Use Quotation marks to force
finding a specific phrase.
When you surround your phrase with quotation
marks, the search engine will only return results exactly matching the
entire phrase. This is an extremely powerful search technique, and yet
it is not used by the majority of web searchers. If you search on the two
words George and Washington, you will get over 8 million results. If you
put quotation marks around the entire name, your results will be restricted
to about 3 million. And if your search is on "George Washington"
"Cherry Tree", you will only get about 12,600 results. You get
the picture. This is especially important if your search contains what
are called "stop words" - words that Google is designed to ignore,
such as "and" "of" and "the". By including
these inside your quoted phrase, you will get more targeted search results.
Tip Number Three:
Use the Plus (+) and Minus (-)
Signs.
The plus sign just before a search term means "This MUST
be found in the search". Conversely, if you find a lot of search results
that include a specific product, word, phrase, or item that you do not
want to see, you can put a minus sign before that word or phrase, and those
results will be excluded from your search. You can even exclude domains
or top-level domains from your search - see the site: command below.
Tip Number Four:
Use the Asterisk (*) As a WildCard
search term.
Yes, you can insert an asterisk in your search phrase
and it will act as a wild card matching any word in that place in the phrase.
Not only that, but you can insert more than one asterisk in place of more
than one word in your search phrase, up to the limit of ten search words
- and the wild card markers are not counted toward this ten word limit.
Tip Number Five:
Use the site: command.
If
you are interested in finding examples of the term XMLHttp, but only on
eggheadcafe.com, then you can create a search like this: site:eggheadcafe.com
XMLHTTP This will restrict your search to only pages belonging to that
web site. You will notice that in regular Google searches, if there are
more than two results from that site, the second result will be indented
and there will be a link "More results from ..." - this automatically
uses the site: qualifier. Also, you can search or exclude whole domains.
For example, you can search for tampopo dvd site:co.uk or tampopo dvd -site:com
(Tampopo is a wonderful Japanese noodle western spoof by director Juzo
Itami that is sure to be enjoyed by Americans. If you really want to get
educated IMHO, try to avoid watching films out of Hollywood, as they generally
stink).
Tip Number Six:
Use the operators.
Besides
the site: command, Google understands a range of operators that include
filetype: (eg doc, xls, or pdf), intext: and allintext:, intitle: and allintitle:,
inurl: and allinurl:, author: (in Google Groups) and location: (in Google
News). Google also understands a logical OR, provided it is upper case.
This means you can search for a bar in Orlando OR Miami for example. It
is useful when targets of searches have alternative or variable spellings:
outsourcing bombay OR mumbai. The OR command can be shortened to a vertical
bar (|), as in outsourcing bombay | mumbai. Another way of adding alternatives
is to use a tilde character (~). Thus if you search for ~food, Google also
searches for cooking, cuisine, nutrition, recipes and restaurants. You
have a lot of power and flexibility; you just have to make some notes and
learn the language that the search engine understands so that you can speak
to it. The search engine doesn't get mad or take offense - provided that
you know its language, it will do exactly what you tell it to!
Tip Number Seven:
Use the Advanced Search Page.
Fortunately, you don't need to memorize all of the above tricks, since
they are conveniently offered to you in various combinations in the Advanced
Search option which is always available from the main Google search page.
Tip Number Eight:
Use Google Groups.
Google
has the most complete archive of usenet and other news posts going back
over 20 years. By simply switching tabs from Web to Groups, your search
term(s) will be repeated on the Groups archives. I cannot stress how valuable
this can be- many, many times when I have not found a proper result on
the web, by simply switching to Google Groups I've been able to find exactly
what I was looking for.
Tip Number Nine:
Use new advanced search features.
Google has a number of new features including Google Local, Google News
(news items from newspapers and other publications around the globe), Froogle
- which searches for the best prices on products, and the Dictionary -
to get the spelling and / or definition of a word. In fact, if you may
have misspelled a word in your search, Google's dictionary will remind
you with a link that says "Did you really mean XXX?" and clicking
that link will correct your search. Google also provides an Images search
facility that brings back results filled with actual images on web pages
that match your search terms. One of the lastest new offerings as of this
writing in October, 2004, is a mobile SMS search that allows you to send
an SMS message to google with your search terms for a restaurant and zipcode,
somebody's name and address, or whatever, and get back the results to your
cellphone in seconds. I've used it, and it works great. You can even get
driving directions. Here's a table with a listing of links to some of the
Google advanced search features:
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Cached
Links
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View a snapshot of each
page as it looked when we indexed it.
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Calculator
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Use Google to evaluate mathematical
expressions.
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Definitions
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Use Google to get glossary definitions
gathered from various online sources.
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File
Types
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Search for non-HTML file formats
including PDF documents and others.
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Froogle
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To find a product for sale online,
use Froogle - Google's product search service.
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I'm
Feeling Lucky
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Bypass our results and go to the
first web page returned for your query.
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Local
Search
-
New!
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Search for local businesses and
services in the U.S. and Canada.
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News
Headlines
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Enhances your search results with
the latest related news stories.
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PhoneBook
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Look up U.S. street address and
phone number information.
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Search
By Number
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Use Google to access package tracking
information, US patents, and a variety of online databases.
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Similar
Pages
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Display pages that are related
to a particular result.
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Site
Search
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Restrict your search to a specific
site.
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Spell
Checker
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Offers alternative spelling for
queries.
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Stock
Quotes
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Use Google to get stock and mutual
fund information.
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Street
Maps
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Use Google to find U.S. street
maps.
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Travel
Information
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Check the status of an airline
flight in the U.S. or view airport delays and weather conditions.
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Web
Page Translation
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Provides English speakers access
to a variety of non-English web pages.
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Who
Links To You?
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Find all the pages that point to
a specific URL.
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Tip Number Ten:
Use the Google API.
Google
has an API with a WSDL webservices proxy class generator for developers
that allows you to incorporate the power of Google search into your own
applications. It's free, and all you need to do is download the SDK and
request a free license key. Now that I think of it, Amazon also has a very
fine API that now includes the Alexa search engine which provides some
very useful statistical information about URLs and web crawler searches
from the Alexa engine, so Google "ain't the only game in town".
Have fun, and remember the ancient
Chinese proverb about teaching a man to fish. Often, when we get posts
with questions that can be easily answered with a simple Google search
on Eggheadcafe.com, you will see answers from yours truly holding nothing
more than the URL of the search itself. I wish more of them would "get
the message" about learning how to fish! And, lest we forget - be
nice to newbies. You were one once, too.
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