Cool Tips for More Effective Googling
How many times each day do you Google? Like Xerox and Kleenex (and Coke if you’re from the South), Google has reached the pinnacle of brand recognition by becoming the generic term for the broader product — in this case, search engines. I easily use Google’s search engine dozens of times each day, and it immediately returns millions of possible answers. However, there are times when I am searching for something very specific and want fewer results.
Here are some helpful tips for refining your search from the moment you start typing into the search box.
Basic:
- Exclude words from your seach: use the minus sign
Type: scooter -clothing to search for motorscooters and not girls’ casual skirts.
- Search for similar words/phrases: use ~
Type: ~nerds to search among nerds, dorks and other words of related geekdom.
- Search for exact words/phrases: use quotation marks
Type: “one ring to rule them all” to produce results containing the famous Lord of the Rings phrase.
- Search for multiple words/phrases: use AND or OR (uppercase)
Type: recipes tomato AND onion to find recipes containing both ingredients. Use OR if you want to produce results with either ingredient.
- Search across a range of numbers: use …
Type: flat screen TV $1000…$5000 to find listings for flat screen TVs within that price range.
- Search for a word definition: use define:
Type: define: ebullient to learn the meaning of the word.
- Search within a site: use site:
Type: pets site:edu to search educational sites for pets, or type pets site:killough.us for pets within one particular site, such as www.killough.us.
Fun/Cool Tips:
- Google is a calculator! Type basic operations such as + to add (3+5), – to subtract (54-9), * to multiply (24*17), / to divide (42/6) and ^ for exponents (10^3). You can also type 15% of 25, or to find a squareroot, type sqrt(81).
- Instantly convert units: Type 150 ounces to liters, 45 fahrenheit to celsius, 500 dollars to euros, 142 cm to inches and more.
- Get a weather forecast: Type weather San Antonio to check the forecast
- Look up the local time: Type time Australia to check the time down under
- Find someplace near your zip code: Type Chinese food 11590 or hardware store 78245
- Track a flight: For example, type Delta 1652 to see the status of the flight.
- Find a movie in your area: Type movie:girl with the dragon tattoo 10019 to locate the theater showing the film near your selected zip code.
Now, to find the meaning of life. Google returns 88,600,000 possibilities for that search string in .55 seconds. But I think that may be one topic that I have to figure out myself.