Insanityville

12 Search Tips to Google Like a Genius

By on April 16th, 2008

Search for exactly what you want

Using quotes, eg ” “, will ensure you search for what you enter and nothing else. When you enter a bunch of words into google it will search for pages containing any of those words so instead of searching for geek cool, which will bring you anything with geek and anything with cool. But, inserting the search phrase within quotation marks like “geek cool” will bring up any related page with the exact phrase listed.

I want to search using this, but I don’t want that

Think of this like ordering a pizza. I hate anchovies. So if you wanted to order a pepperoni pizza with no anchovies I would type in

-anchovies pepperoni pizza

and I get the pizza I want. Stick a dash sign (-) sign before the word you don’t want, but make sure it’s the first word in the box.

I want to make sure Google includes this in its search

Using the “+” sign before a word will make sure Google will include it within it’s results.

Not exactly sure what to search for?

Use the Google suggest feature, it comes with the browser Firefox and the Google Toolbar, or you can use it here. As you type it Google will provide the search phrases it thinks you are looking for. It’s great for finding alternatives to what you type in, kind of like a search thesaurus.

Want to know if Google has a sense of humor?

Search for “What’s the answer to life, the universe and everything?”
If you don’t get it you have no right to call yourself a geek

Want to know how to convert kilos into pounds?

Type in “what is 4 x 2″ and you will see the calculator function return an 8, or “what is ten percent of 100″ which returns a 10. Very useful if you are like me and rubbish at Math.

The cool thing about the Google calculator is that it can mix and match its units. Try “How many km in a light year?” or “How many teaspoons in a pint?”, or how many kilos in 28 pounds? The answer is 12.7 kilos by the way
The calculator function can be a great waste of time or a useful tool to help write your science thesis.

You can learn more about the calculator here.

Want to search a specific site for a keyword.

Google allows you to keep your search within the confines of a specific website. This is very useful when the site is huge and has poor navigation.

Example: “funny video ” site:www.earthfrisk.com will give you a nice list of pages for “funny video” on www.earthfrisk.com

I only want to include results from pdf documents.

A lot of articles are published on pdf these days, free reports and e-books etc. But, most of them do not rank highly in the search results page and so narrowing your search to just PDF documents may result in digging up some gold.

Type in the search box: “world of warcraft ” filetype:pdf

The same works for Power Point documents

Type: “world of warcraft ” filetype:ppt

What’s interesting is by using the example of, “World of Warcraft” you can see that the results are more academic and serious. normally you would simply get a lot of fan and commercial materiel and Filtering by document can give you access to richer sources of information.

Want to search for what a word means

Type: “define phantasmagoric” into the search box and it will return the definition. Type any word with define first and it will return what the word means.

Want to search the blogosphere

Bloggers are a breed unto their own and sometimes it may be worth to find out what they are saying about a subject. Use Googles’ Blog search function to limit your searches to blogs.

Haven’t got the brain capacity to remember stuff?

Bookmark this page or go to Googles advance search page, I can’t remember stuff either, even Einstein could never remember his phone number, his rationale being, why fill your head with stuff you can find in a book.

Just think about something and Google will search for it

Using the new Mind powered search, Google can perform a scan of your brain and deliver you the required results. Remember to tick the privacy box.

Actually, I made this last one up.

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