How to Google Correctly (Part 1)

Searching things in web become one of daily activities now a days. Millions of people use “Google”, when they want to find something and millions more use it for entertainment. Usually people don’t think too much before ‘Google’. Most of people may not be using ‘Google search’ to its full potential. But the thing is ‘Google search’ is an art.

Want to use Google search more efficiently and get the search results you want quickly? I introduce 20 ‘Google search’ tips and tricks to maximize your search efficiency:

1. Use the tabs

The first tip is to use the tabs in Google search.This is not a very much unknown one. Most of people already use it.Google gave us some tabs on the top of every search. Usually you’ll see Web, Image, News, and More. Using these tabs, you can help define what kind of search you need to do.

As a example if you need images, use the Image tab. If you are looking for a recent news article, use the News tab. It’s rudimentary and most people use the tabs already. If you are not, then it’s highly recommended to get associated with them first. They can cut search times dramatically if utilized properly.

2. Use quotes

Usually quotes use to minimize the guesswork in google search. When you want to search something specific, use the quotes. When you search something in parameters of quotes, it means search the whole phrase. Generally google does not do that. Thing is in general search google doesn’t consider even order of contain.  

As a example if you want to search ‘Father of information technology’ with quotes, you can get results that phase exactly as you typed. This can help locate specific information that may be buried under other content if not sorted out correctly.

3. Use a hyphen to exclude words

This is use to reduce search results that are not suitable for our need. As a example let’s think I want get logo of ‘python’.

(If I google it without any specific method I get some images of snake)

Yeah it is totally correct. Because there is a snake called ‘python’. To get a correct logo I have to scroll lot. So what we gonna do?

Let’s cut and get short our result list by using hyphen.

 

This tells the search engine to search for pythons but to remove any results that have the word “snake” in it. It can be wildly helpful when finding information about something without getting information about something else.

4. Use a colon to search specific sites

There may be an instance where you need to Google search for articles or content on a certain website. The syntax is very simple and we’ll show you below.

As a example let’s think I want to some blog article about Sri Lanka in Wordpress site. Let’s see if I don’t use any kind of technique.

See I should scroll lot of pages to search what I need. But If I use colon to my search to add web site , result is . . . .

5. Find a page that links to another page

This Google search tip is a little obscure. Instead of searching for a specific page, you’re searching for a page that links to a specific page. Think about it this way. Let’s think I want to see who use my blog articles in their websites , I can search it that way. The syntax is below

Link:sritech.tk

See it is very easy to check who follows me. That will return all pages that link to my blog site. The URL on the right side can be practically anything. Be aware, though, that the more specific it is, the fewer results you’ll get. We know not a lot of people will likely use this Google search trick, but it could be very useful for some.

6. Use the asterisk wildcard

The asterisk wildcard is one of the most useful ones on the list. Here’s how it works. Let’s think I have a content to search but something missing in the middle. If I use Asterisk mark for missing pieces Google will filled automatically later. This is a brilliant way to find song lyrics if you don’t know all the words. As a example let’s search the song “ come together right now over me “ by Michael Jackson.

“Come * right now * me”

To you or me, that may look like nonsense. However, Google search will search for that phrase knowing that the asterisks can be any word. More often than not, you’ll find they are lyrics to The Beatles song “Come Together” and that’s what the search will tell you.

7. Find sites that are similar to other sites

Sometimes our favourite websites, blog pages can be down for days or weeks. So how we find a site like our favourite. It’s easy .......!!!

Let’s say your favorite website is ebay.com and it will down for days . However, its down and you want to buy something hurry so  you want to find other websites like it. You would use this trick. Below is the syntax:

Related:ebay.com

If you search that above, you won’t find a link to Amazon. Instead, you’ll find links to online stores like Amazon. Sites like Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, and others that sell physical items online. It’s a powerful Google search tool that can help you find new sites to browse.

8. Use Google search to do math

See it says so many alternatives for eBay. Google search can actually do math for you. This is a rather complex one to describe because it can be used in so many ways. You can ask it basic questions or some more difficult ones.

Do you think google can solve your math problems by just searching ?

It is important to note that it won’t solve all math problems, but it will solve a good number of them. Here are a couple of examples of the syntax:
Ex:
8 * 5 + 5

Planck’s Consant

If you search the first one, it’ll return 45. It will also show a calculator that you can use to find answers to more questions. This is handy if you need to do some quick math but don’t want to do it in your head. If you search the second term, it will return the number value of Planck’s Constant.

So it can do math, but it can also help you solve math problems by showing values for known mathematical terms.

And this is just a start to give you to Google Tips. It will more tricks. Lets find out them in next posts. Stay tuned.