Google Searching

Google has done some amazing things with their search engine, and I find that many people have no idea what the capabilities are.  Below are some that I use a lot.  The actual thing you need to type will be in bold, and any search words you need to add are in brackets.

"[insert a phrase here]"

Searching with some words with quotes around it will search for that exact phrase.  For example, search for "printer paper" if you want to find all web pages with the exact phrase "printer paper" instead of pages with the words "printer" and "paper" separately.  A search with just printer paper would turn up the latter pages.

+[keyword] +[keyword]

This will ensure that both search words are included.  I find that it seems sometimes words are excluded, and this forces the engine to include both of those words

[keyword] -[keyword]

Using the "-" symbol in front of a word will exclude that word from being in a page that comes up.  For instance, if you're looking for a used car, but not a Cadillac, you might search for used car -cadillac (as a side note, case means nothing to a search engine, except for boolean operations, covered next).

[keyword] OR [keyword]

You're looking for something specific, but it's called two different things.  To bring up all pages that have both names, use OR between the words.  For instance, a AA alkaline battery is also called an LR6, so search something like battery aa OR lr6.  This is one of the few cases where case matters - "or" MUST be in caps, otherwise Google will think you're looking for the word "or" in the web page.

inurl:[domain name here] [keyword]

This one is amazingly useful for web sites that have a horrible search on them.  Say you're having a hard time finding a Samsung article on Engadget.  Your search may look something like inurl:engadget.com samsung.  This will find any web page that has "engadget.com" in the URL and also has "Samsung" on the page.  Sure, you may have a few pages come up that just happen to have engadget.com in the URL but aren't part of Engadget's website, but those usually won't be too common.

define:[word you need defined]

This one is amazingly simple and awesome.  Say you don't know what dubious means.  Just type in define:dubious and a bunch of definitions from around the web come up.  This is also useful for defining acronyms you may not know.  Sure, you have to pick through a bunch that may be wrong, but using context clues, you can usually come up with the right ones.

[number][currency] to [currency]

This one is a little hard to explain without an example.  Say you're travelling to Europe, and you want to know how much something costs in US dollars.  The thing you're looking at is 100 Euros, so type in 100eur to usd.  This will give you the going rate at that point in time for 100 Euros.  It's not exactly accurate and shouldn't be used as such, but it will give you a pretty darn good idea of what the conversion rate is.  You can also just do searches like us dollar to euros to tell you how many Euros are in one US dollar.

[store name or type] near [place]

Say you need to find a Best Buy pronto, and you can't find your copy of the phone book (or you're in some weird place you've never been before).  Just go type in Best Buy near San Diego, CA and Google will bring up the closest Best Buys.  This can also be used for things like appliance near San Diego, CA to bring up any appliance stores near there.  Yes, I just picked a random city.  Yes, I would absolutely love to be there right now.

weather in [place]

You've just looked up the nearest Best Buy in San Diego, but you want to see what the weather is like before you step out the door.  If it really is San Diego, you probably don't need to actually check the weather, cuz it's always 60-70º and sunny, but for the example, let's play along.  Type in weather in San Diego, CA and the weather will be shown.  For big cities, you usually don't need to type in the state.

[mathematical expression]

You're stuck without a calculator and can't find the shortcut to the calculator on your computer.  What's a person to do?  Go to Google and type in 36164*4 (or whatever you need, obviously) and Google uses mathmagics to get the answer!

time [place]

Someone you know is travelling to Japan, and you want to Skype them, but you don't know what time it is there.  Type in time Japan and Google will tell you the current time in Japan.

Those are a few of the search operations that make life a lot easier.  These coupled with Google Chrome, cuz you can just type searches in the address bar, puts information in front of you that much faster.