Monday, February 2, 2009

Google Search Tips and Tricks

I am just fade up of doing the normal search of writing the keyword, then searching (more searching) for the right result to show up. Here's some of the tips and tricks you can try out to reduce the quantity but increase the quality of your search results.
1.
Google is not case sensitive. Using 'book reader' as 'BOOK READER' shows the same results. But the Google operators are case sensitive. Using 'book OR reader' uses OR as Google operator but 'book or reader' doesn't. Google excludes some common words like, 'what', 'is', 'and', etc.

2. '+' It
forces a word to be used in the search. Using it with the common words like 'is', 'and', are included in the search results, which are usually discarded.

3. '-'
It prevents a search term to show in results. Example: books -fantasy will avoid results of fantasy books.

4. 'OR'
It shows results with either of the given words, like Pen OR book.

5. Synonym '~'
It shows the result not only of your search term but also the synonym of it. Example: ~ food

6. 'site:website'
It allows you to search inside the specific website only. Example: wine site:www.wineworld.com

If you want to exclude certain website from search result then you can use it. Example: food site:www.wikipedia.com -site:www.wordpress.com

7. Number range
Numrange searches for results containing numbers in a given range. Example: here's how you'd search for a DVD player that costs between $50 and $100: DVD player $50..$100
8. Phrase search

When you want the results with the exact phrase then you can simply use quotation marks around your search terms. Example: "the rose bud"
9. Get the local time anywhere
What time is it in Kathmandu right now? Enter simply what time is it to get the local time in big cities around the world, or add the locale at the end of your query, like what time is it Hong Kong to get the local time there. time Hong Kong does the same thing as what time is it Hong Kong
8. Convert currency, metrics, bytes, and more
Google's powerful built-in converter calculator can help you out whether you're cooking dinner, traveling abroad, or building a PC. Find out how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup (quarter cup in teaspoons) or how many seconds there are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro). For the geekier set, bits in kilobytes (155473 bytes in kilobytes) and numbers in hex or binary (19 in binary) are also pretty useful. Try half a cup in ounces. And there are many other such relations to find.
9.filetype:
It returns links to documents with the given file type. For example searching for mobile game filetype:java will find portable and object-oriented mobile games. Currently officially supported file types are pdf, ps, wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku, lwp, mw, xls, ppt, doc, pdf, wks, wps, wdb, wri, rtf, swf, ans, txt, but other are supported as well, like xml, cpp, java etc.

10. cache:
No problem if the website is blocked; using this to your search term shows the cached version of the given web page. Example:stake money cache:something.com

11. link:
It lists webpages that link to the given webpage. Example link:http://likeweb.blogspot.com wil list webpages with links to the likeweb.blogspot.com.

12. weather:
It shows the weather information of the given city. Example: weather:Kathmandu

13. define:
It shows the definition of the searched term. Example: define:Doughnut

14. Advanced Options
Just see the right of the Google Search box. There is in tiny words saying Advanced Options. It can really help you minimise the page no and give you quality search results. You can opt for country, time, language, and many other options from it.

Still there are many other Search options that I left you to find. Just search them.
Yahoo Search Tips and tricks

1 comment:

  1. Thanks very much for these search tips.

    Well i found some other search tricks..
    related:your search word
    Shows the results related to your specified keyword.
    any way thanks

    ReplyDelete