23 GOOGLE SEARCH TIPS

1) Google can be your phone book:-
Type a person’s name, city and state directly into the search box, and Google will deliver phone and address listings at the top of the results. The feature works for business listings too.

Bonus Tip: Google can work as a reverse directory; if all you have is a phone number, type it in and any matches will appear in the results.

2) Google can be your calculator:-
Type a math problem into the search box and Google will compute it. You can spell out the equation in words (two plus two, twelve divided by three), use numbers and symbols (2+2, 12/3), or type in a combination of both (ten million * pi, 15% of six).

3) Longer is better, but shorter is okay:-
Google is designed to return high quality results even for a one two word queries, so you can keep your searches short. But adding a few more words often yields better results.

Example: - While gathering information on applying to colleges, include the word admissions after the name of the university you are searching to get more relevant results.

4) Use quotations marks when precision matters:-
Typing “the search is over” into Google will return Web pages about the rock song by Survivor – but leaving off the quotes will produce will produce an assortment of unrelated pages. The reason: adding quote marks around a query tells Google to look for occurrences of the exact phrase as it was typed. That makes quote marks especially helpful when searching for song lyrics, people’s names, or expressions such as “to be or not to be” that include very common words.

5) Google can be your dictionary:-
Type ‘define’ followed by any English word into the search box, and Google will give you a quick definition at the top of the search results.

6) Capitalization doesn’t matter:-
Save yourself time and typos: don’t bother with the SHIFT key. Googling Queen Elizabeth II and queen elizabeth ii yields the same results. So whether you enter words n uppercase or lowercase, Google treats them equally – though the Queen would prefer otherwise.

Bonus tip:- Google ignores common words like ‘the’, ‘is’, ‘of’, and ‘to’ when they are used in search queries without quotes. Adding them will not change or improve the results, so you can ignore them too.

7) Forget pluralism:-
Google automatically searches for all the stems of a word, so you don’t need to do separate searches for ‘dance’, ‘dances’ and ‘dancing’. Just type one of the words and Google will take care of the rest, giving you results all in one list.

8) Get the picture:-
Looking for a picture of Paris Hilton, or the Paris Hilton Hotel? Click on the “Images” link above the search box, type your query and Google will provide any photos or graphics in its database of one billion images that match your terms, with the link to the page where they appear.

Bonus Tip: - Image searches may lead you to helpful Websites that you otherwise may not find in the regular search results.

9) Maps, driving directions and satellite views are one click away:-
The fastest way to finding the fastest way to your destination is to enter a city and a state (or just a zip code) into the search box.

Example:- Type ‘Washington dc’, and Google will provide a direct link to its own map and directions service, maps.google.com, as well as those by Yahoo and MapQuest, making it easy to compare and get a second opinion. On Google maps you can toggle between a standard map view and overhead satellite imagery that pans and zooms with the drag of a mouse, and find listings of local businesses too.

10) Where do you want to go today?:-
If you know the specific Website you want to visit, type its name into the Google search box, hit enter and you will be there in a flash.

11) Browse the world’s bookshelves online:-
Search for a topic at print.google.com and you will see information from actual books that Google has scanned and indexed in its database. You can browse or read the entire text of works that are not copyrighted; for others, you can see snippets of pages where your search term appears and learn where to buy a full copy.

12) Dial GOOGL when you’re on the go:-
Get phone numbers, directions, movie times, stock quotes and more delivered to your cell phone. Send a text message with your query to the number 46645 (GOOGL on most U.S. phones) and search engine will message you back with instant answers.

13) I’m feeling Lucky:-
Enter a search term and click this button on the Google homepage to bypass a long list of results and go directly to the top-matching Webpage for your term.

14) Google can be your newscaster:-
Google news, reachable via the “News” link above the search box or at news.google.com, provides up-to-the minute information on politics, business, technology, entertainment, health, sports and more. Type a topic of interest into the Google News search box to find the most recent stories from more than 4,500 global news sources.

Bonus Tip: - To follow topic closely, sign up at google.com/alerts for regular alerts that are e-mailed to you with the most up-to-date news and Weblinks.

15) Google can be your weatherman:-
Type weather followed by a zip code or the name of a city, and Google will give the current conditions and a four-day forecast at the top of the results page.

16) Become a researcher:-
Google tends to list popular fresh pages at the top of its results, but dig beyond the first page or two of search results and you will often find older, forgotten pages that have just what you need for a research project. Also check out the “cached” versions of the web pages that Google collects as it crawls and downloads the Web, which is available through a blue link at the end of every search results. The cached version is an old version of the page, and often has the content you are seeking even if the current version of the page has changed – say, a news site that removed the original story.

Bonus Tip: - The cached version also highlights your search terms in color whenever they appear on the page, an especially helpful feature when combing through long documents.

17) Become a scholar:-
Serious searchers can tap into thousands of scientific and academic journals with Google Scholar. Enter a query into the search box at scholar.google.com to get abstracts and papers from published sources.

18) Take a magic

19) Pack more results onto each page:-
The “Preferences” link to the right of the search box is your ticket to tweaking various settings for Google searches, including the number of results displayed per page. Increase the number of matches you see per page from the standard set of 10 to 20, 30 or more to put more answers at your fingertips faster.

20) Translate into other languages:-
The “language Tools” links, also found to the right of the search box on the homepage, calls up Google’s automated translation service s well as other language options. From this page, you can translate text among numerous languages (English to Spanish, French to German, Chinese to English…) or translate a Webpage simply by entering its address.

21) Get an instant stock quote:-
Type a stock ticker symbol into the search box to get a stock quote and chart on any public company listed on New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange or NASDAQ.

22) Get PG-rated results:-
A search on a serious topic like sex education might trigger objectionable material, so Google provides optional SafeSearch filter to keep results family-friendly. Click the “Preferences” link next to the search box to view and adjust the SafeSearch settings (choose from ‘strict’, ‘moderate’, or no filtering).

23) Peer inside Google:-
Click the “more >” link above the search the search box to find additional Google features and products as well as further tips on how to search effectively. Check out the very handy one page Google search guide at google.com/help/cheatsheet.html.

Bonus Tip:-
See what the future of Google innovation holds – including TV search, personalized search, a real time taxicab locator and more – at Google Labs. Just type “Google labs” into the Google Search box.

As published in The Google Story written by David A. Vice.

The author, Kishor is a handwriting analyst, an article writer and a blogger. He is currently working on becoming a self employed individual. Kishor invites you to learn more about him at www.kishorvr.com