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20 Great Google Secrets Must Know!
20
Great Google Secrets Must Know!
Syntax Search Tricks:
Using
a special syntax is a way to tell Google that you want to restrict your
searches to certain elements or characteristics of Web pages. Google
has a fairly complete list of its syntax elements at
Code: www.google.com/help/operators.html
.
Here are some advanced operators that can help narrow down your search
results.
Intitle: at the beginning of a query word or phrase
(intitle:"Three Blind Mice") restricts your search results to just the
titles of Web pages.
Intext: does the opposite of intitle:,
searching only the body text, ignoring titles, links, and so forth.
Intext: is perfect when what you're searching for might commonly appear
in URLs. If you're looking for the term HTML, for example, and you don't
want to get results such as
Code: www.mysite.com/index.html ,
you can enter intext:html.
Link: lets you see which pages
are linking to your Web page or to another page you're interested in.
For example, try typing in
Try using site: (which restricts
results to top-level domains) with intitle: to find certain types of
pages. For example, get scholarly pages about Mark Twain by searching
for intitle:"Mark Twain"site:edu. Experiment with mixing various
elements; you'll develop several strategies for finding the stuff you
want more effectively. The site: command is very helpful as an
alternative to the mediocre search engines built into many sites.
Swiss
Army Google
Google has a number of services that can help you
accomplish tasks you may never have thought to use Google for. For
example, the new calculator feature
lets
you do both math and a variety of conversions from the search box. For
extra fun, try the query "Answer to life the universe and everything."
Let
Google help you figure out whether you've got the right spelling—and
the right word—for your search. Enter a misspelled word or phrase into
the query box (try "thre blund mise") and Google may suggest a proper
spelling. This doesn't always succeed; it works best when the word
you're searching for can be found in a dictionary. Once you search for a
properly spelled word, look at the results page, which repeats your
query. (If you're searching for "three blind mice," underneath the
search window will appear a statement such as Searched the web for
"three blind mice.") You'll discover that you can click on each word in
your search phrase and get a definition from a dictionary.
Suppose
you want to contact someone and don't have his phone number handy.
Google can help you with that, too. Just enter a name, city, and state.
(The city is optional, but you must enter a state.) If a phone number
matches the listing, you'll see it at the top of the search results
along with a map link to the address. If you'd rather restrict your
results, use rphonebook: for residential listings or bphonebook: for
business listings. If you'd rather use a search form for business phone
listings, try Yellow Search
Google offers several services that give you a head
start in focusing your search. Google Groups
(Code: http://groups.google.com)
indexes
literally millions of messages from decades of discussion on Usenet.
Google even helps you with your shopping via two tools: Froogle CODE
(Code: http://froogle.google.com),
which
indexes products from online stores, and Google Catalogs CODE
(Code: http://catalogs.google.com),
which
features products from more 6,000 paper catalogs in a searchable index.
And this only scratches the surface. You can get a complete list of
Google's tools and services at
Code: www.google.com/options/index.html
You're
probably used to using Google in your browser. But have you ever
thought of using Google outside your browser?
Google Alert
(Code: www.googlealert.com)
monitors
your search terms and e-mails you information about new additions to
Google's Web index. (Google Alert is not affiliated with Google; it uses
Google's Web services API to perform its searches.) If you're more
interested in news stories than general Web content, check out the beta
version of Google News Alerts
(Code: www.google.com/newsalerts).
This
service (which is affiliated with Google) will monitor up to 50 news
queries per e-mail address and send you information about news stories
that match your query. (Hint: Use the intitle: and source: syntax
elements with Google News to limit the number of alerts you get.)
Google
on the telephone? Yup. This service is brought to you by the folks at
Google Labs
(Code: http://labs.google.com),
a
place for experimental Google ideas and features (which may come and go,
so what's there at this writing might not be there when you decide to
check it out). With Google Voice Search
(Code: http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html),
you
dial the Voice Search phone number, speak your keywords, and then click
on the indicated link. Every time you say a new search term, the
results page will refresh with your new query (you must have javascript
enabled for this to work). Remember, this service is still in an
experimental phase, so don't expect 100 percent success.
In 2002,
Google released the Google API (application programming interface), a
way for programmers to access Google's search engine results without
violating the Google Terms of Service. A lot of people have created
useful (and occasionally not-so-useful but interesting) applications not
available from Google itself, such as Google Alert. For many
applications, you'll need an API key, which is available free from CODE Code: www.google.com/apis
Thanks
to its many different search properties, Google goes far beyond a
regular search engine. Give the tricks in this article a try. You'll be
amazed at how many different ways Google can improve your Internet
searching.
Online Extra: More Google Tips
Here are
a few more clever ways to tweak your Google searches.
Search
Within a Timeframe
Daterange: (start date–end date). You can
restrict your searches to pages that were indexed within a certain time
period. Daterange: searches by when Google indexed a page, not when the
page itself was created. This operator can help you ensure that results
will have fresh content (by using recent dates), or you can use it to
avoid a topic's current-news blizzard and concentrate only on older
results. Daterange: is actually more useful if you go elsewhere to take
advantage of it, because daterange: requires Julian dates, not standard
Gregorian dates. You can find converters on the Web (such as
CODE Code: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html excl.gif
No Active Links, Read the Rules - Edit by Ninja excl.gif
),
but an easier way is to do a Google daterange: search by filling in a
form at
Code: www.researchbuzz.com/toolbox/goofresh.shtml or
Code: www.faganfinder.com/engines/google.shtml . If one
special syntax element is good, two must be better, right? Sometimes.
Though some operators can't be mixed (you can't use the link: operator
with anything else) many can be, quickly narrowing your results to a
less overwhelming number.
More Google API Applications
Staggernation.com
offers three tools based on the Google API. The Google API Web Search
by Host (GAWSH) lists the Web hosts of the results for a given query
(Code: www.staggernation.com/gawsh/).
When
you click on the triangle next to each host, you get a list of results
for that host. The Google API Relation Browsing Outliner (GARBO) is a
little more complicated: You enter a URL and choose whether you want
pages that related to the URL or linked to the URL
(Code: www.staggernation.com/garbo/).
Click
on the triangle next to an URL to get a list of pages linked or related
to that particular URL. CapeMail is an e-mail search application that
allows you to send an e-mail to google@capeclear.com with the text of
your query in the subject line and get the first ten results for that
query back. Maybe it's not something you'd do every day, but if your
cell phone does e-mail and doesn't do Web browsing, this is a very handy
address to know.
