This Google tips guide provides helpful hints on using the most popular search engine in the world. Most web users know the basics of Google search, but you can improve your Googling skills with these helpful tips.
Tips for Google
- Exclude Words From Your Search
Use Google's subtraction feature to remove words you don't want from your search. For example, if you're doing a search on spears, the weapon, you'll likely find a lot of hits with "Britney Spears". To remove Britney from your search, do: spears -britney
- Find Out the Time Anywhere
Find out what time it is, anywhere on the planet: Use "time PLACE", for example, to find out what time it is at Mahalo.com's headquarters in Santa Monica, CA: time Santa Monica
- Get a Word's Definition
Don't pull out your dictionary or go to a site like dictionary.com the next time you need a definition, use Google. Use this syntax: define: WORD. For example: define: geek
- Search Specific File Types
Google allows searches to be done on specific file types. For example, you could search only pdf documents with this: strawberries filetype:pdf
- Turn Google into Your Personal Music Locator
Turn Google into a music search service by searching for mp3 fileshttp://blog.awswebshop.com/2006/10/15/turn-google-into-your-own-personal-free-napster/, for example:
-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +size + mp3 + "Vivaldi"
Just replace Vivaldi with your favorite musician or band. (Disclaimer: It's illegal to download copywritten material if you don't have permission to do so.)
- Site-Specific Search
Search for content on a specific site. For example, to search for bowling on Mahalo, enter this into the Google search box: bowling site:mahalo.com. Substitute bowling for your search term(s) and mahalo.com for your specific site.
- Find out the People Behind the Company or Organization
Want to find out who are the people behind Mahalo? Paste this URL into your browser:
http://images.google.com/images?q=Mahalo&imgtype=face
To do your own, just replace the Mahalo in the above URL with your search term. If you have more than one term, you can use %20 in between words, for example, a search for the people of Star Trek looks like this:
http://images.google.com/images?q=Star%20Trek&imgtype=face
- Find Clipart
This tip builds from the previous tip, and allows only clipart to be found with Google image search. For example, to find all clipart with sharks paste this search query into your web browser:
http://images.google.com/images?q=sharks&imgtype=clipart
Substitute sharks with your favorite search term, and again, use the %20 in between multiple search terms.
- Find Wallpaper
You can use Google Image search to find only big images suitable for wallpaper. For example, to find all big images with robots, use this URL:
http://images.google.com/images?q=robots%20wallpaper&imgsz=xxlarge
Replace robots with your search term. Use the %20 in between multiple search terms.
