Google is easy to use. You can type almost anything in the search bar and expect useful results. However, you can control how Google performs your searches to increase your chances of finding what you’re looking for in fewer steps and with greater accuracy. Master these Google search tricks and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and frustration in the future. Discover 20 Google tricks to perform searches more efficiently
20 Google tricks to perform searches more efficiently
IT MAY INTEREST YOU:
1. Double quotes for exact text matches
When you type a phrase into Google, the search engine will look for many permutations of those words, trying to bring you the most relevant results. However, if you know the exact text you’re looking for, such as the title of a book, you can force Google to only return results that perfectly match a string of text. To do this, put your search term in double quotes.
2. Use a hyphen for things you DON’T want to search for
You can put a hyphen in front of words that you don’t want to be included in the result. This makes it easy to trim the results of something else that shares an important word from your search terms. For example, if you’re looking for The Eagles band but don’t want results with the Philadelphia Eagles sports team, you would search for The Eagles -Philadelphia.
3. Search for specific sites with “site:”
Some websites don’t have their own search function, or it’s just not very good. Fortunately, you can effortlessly search any website using Google’s robust algorithm by entering your search term and typing “site:” followed by the URL of the page you want to search for.
Just keep in mind that Google can’t search for the parts of a website that need authorization. In other words, anything behind a username and password.
4. List related sites
If you want to see which sites Google thinks are related to a specific site, simply type “related:” followed by the URL of the website. This is a great way to discover competitor sites that offer the same products and services as your regular options.h
5. Use boolean operators
Boolean operators are logical instructions that tell a computer how to handle data or the results of data. Google can be used with two important boolean operators: OR + AND.
For example, if you searched for Elvis AND Presley, you’d get results that included only both terms, but if you searched for Elvis OR Presley, you’d get results that included either or both terms.
Remember that these operators must be capitalized. You can also use multiple operators and combine them with other tricks on this list, like having terms in quotes.
6. Use “Near Me” to find places to visit
Google is connected to your Maps service and (provided you give it location permissions) knows roughly where you are right now. So if you’re looking for a doctor, a restaurant, a library, or anything else, just Google the type of place you’re looking for, followed by “near me.” You will get a list of places that you can contact or navigate to with a single tap or click.
7. Use the asterisk in quoted text for variable words
If there is a word in your quoted search phrase that could have multiple possible answers (or you don’t know), you can use a “*” as a placeholder. This is known as a “wild operator”, like the Joker in a card game that can substitute for any other card to complete a set.
For example, if you only remember part of a book title, you can Google “War and *” and come back to “War and Peace.” Google has a 32-word limit, which can sometimes be a problem when finding an exact match for a long string.
However, Google doesn’t count wildcards toward this limit, so you can replace common words like “and” and “the” to include more words in your search query.
8. Get calorie information from Google
If you’re counting calories to lose some of that winter weight, you can simply Google “calories” and then add the foods you need the information for. This will spawn a special Google tool that allows you to change the serving size as well for quick response.
9. Turn Google into a dictionary with DEFINE or ETYMOLOGY
If you’re looking for the meaning or origin of a word, all you have to do is use the words “define” or “etymology” and then the word in your search. You’ll get the corresponding input, as well as a button that plays the correct pronunciation of the word. This saves you from having to search for an actual dictionary website.
10. Use Tilde (~) to find similar words
If you put a tilde sign in front of a word in your Google search, you’ll get results for that word as well as its synonyms. This is useful if you’re looking for all the synonyms of a word in your search but don’t have the space (or energy) to type them all.
11. Search using your voice
You’ll notice a microphone icon to the right of the Google search bar. Select it and you can dictate your search terms instead of typing them. The first time you do this, you may be prompted to give your browser microphone permissions. This is especially useful on mobile phones where words are never spelled correctly the first time.
12. Convert units directly in Google
Unless you’re gifted with a special kind of genius, you’re probably not converting feet to meters or kilograms to ounces in your head. Fortunately, Google can instantly convert virtually any pair of units that measure the same thing.
13. Get fast translations
You can get Google translations directly from Google search results. For example, if you Google “Horse in Spanish”, you will get a Google Translate result with audio pronunciation guides.
14. Get priceYoinstant stocks
If you want to know how well your GameStop stock is doing, just type the stock abbreviation or “GameStop Stock Price” into Google, and you’ll get a widget with a summary of current and past stock prices. This also works for other actions, of course.
15. Get exact local sunrise and sunset times
This one is useful for photographers, videographers, and vampires. If you want to know when the sun will rise or set, just search for “sunset” or “sunrise”. If you want the information for a different location than the current one, you can specify it in the search.
16. Quickly view your public IP address
If you search for “What is my IP”, Google will show your internet access IP address. This is useful for testing if your VPN is working properly and any number of network troubleshooting scenarios.
IT MAY INTEREST YOU:
17. Find a range of numbers
If you want to search for a range of numbers, simply place a colon between the numbers that represent the bottom and top of the range. This is useful if you want to search for something that happened between two specific years or if you are searching for a product within a size or long range.
18 View a cached version of a page
If a web page is currently down, but you need information about it, you can ask Google for a cached version of the site generated from its own web indexing operation. The site won’t work and you can’t log in to anything, but you can still see the information on the public side of the site.
To do this, browse to the site and then select the three vertical dots. Then select “cached” and you will see a previously saved version of the site.
IT MAY INTEREST YOU:
19. Search page body text only with Intext
If you want to ensure that you see pages in your results that include specific text in the body (not the title) of the page, you can use the intext operator. This is very useful when combined with operators like “site:”
For example, if you’re searching a school website, you’d use “Site:” to search for just that website and then “Intext:” to list pages that contain a specific term in the body of the page. If the term appears in the title of a page but not in the body of the text, No will be returned as a result.
20. Only search title page titles
The “Intitle:” operator works the same as the Intext operator, limiting search results to web page titles only. This is a great way to limit your search results to just core topics and not results that only mention those terms in passing.
IT MAY INTEREST YOU:
You are now an advanced user!
Armed with these 20 genius Google tricks to search more effectively, you can now make Google search results dance to your beat. This means spending more time looking for things on the web and less time searching for them.
In addition to discovering 20 Google tricks to perform searches more efficientlybelow you can see more related topics of related to this article:
Facebook Comments
Disqus