Art of searching on Google!

I wanted to do this post for a long time – letting our readers know how to effectively search Google. 99.9% of visitors can improve their search results quality and save lots of time by just bringing in a few changes.

Google has truly built an engine, which tries to make it simpler and faster for user to achieve the results in least times. Something like getting to know the current time in a particular city or converting currencies at the latest market rates is really a breeze.

Infact, I would suggest that you should go ahead and try using some of the examples given below-  It is fun !

Different Google Search String Parameters

Time

If you want to know what time of the Day it is at present. Just type in Time in City and you will get the exact time which the world follows.

Example: Time in New Delhi

Currency Converter

Confused about currencies and measurements? Google lets you know what is how much and what is how many.

Example: 100 USD in rupees

Weather

You can easily get weather information with Google by using a simple natural search string. A search string “Weather in city name” will show the weather conditions for next 7 days in that city.

Example: Weather in New Delhi

Explicit Phrase

if you are looking for content that talks strictly about making money online. Instead of just typing making money online into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase.  You simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.

Example: "making money online"

Exclude Words

Lets say you want to search for content about making money online, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term affiliate marketing.  To do this, simply use the "-" sign in front of the word you want to exclude.

Example Search: making money online –affiliate

Site Specific Search

Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term.

Example: "Social Media Marketing" site:www.trak.in

Similar Words and Synonyms

If you want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words. Use the "~" in front of the word.

Example: "marketing" ~professional

Specific Document Types

If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier "filetype:".  For only PowerPoint presentations related to making money online

Example: "making money online" filetype:ppt

This OR That

By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search.  If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. You may also use || instead of OR.

Example: internet marketing OR advertising

Phone Listing

This is my favorite one. Let’s say someone calls you on your mobile number and you don’t know who it is.  If all you have is a phone number, you can look it up on Google using the phonebook feature.

Example: phonebook:617-555-1212

Area Code Lookup

If all you need to do is to look-up the area code for a phone number, just enter the 3-digit area code and Google will tell you where it’s from.

Example: 020

Stock (Ticker Symbol)

Just enter a valid ticker symbol as your search term and Google will give you the current financials and a quick thumb-nail chart for the stock.

Example: INFOSYSTCH

Calculator

The next time you need to do a quick calculation, instead of bringing up the Calculator applet, you can just type your expression in to Google.

Example: 48512 * 1.02

Word Definitions

If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the "define:" command.

Example: define:plethora

Safe Search

You may not want your screen to show any adult content while you search. This happened with me when I tried to search for Boyzone music on Google.

Example: Safesearch: boyzone

Punctuations

Usually it is said to avoid punctuations however when punctuation in popular terms that have particular meanings, like [ C++ ] or [ C# ] (both are names of programming languages), are not ignored and recommended.

The dollar sign ($) is used to indicate prices. [ nikon 400 ] and [ nikon $400 ] will give different results.

The hyphen – is sometimes used as a signal that the two words around it are very strongly connected. (Unless there is no space after the – and a space before it, in which case it is a negative sign.)

The underscore symbol _ is not ignored when it connects two words ,
e.g. [quick_sort].

So there you have it – The art of searching Google!

It would also be great to hear if there are any other specific interesting search parameters that I may have left out ! Let is know