Inside Google Search: Tips & Tricks

Updated On 11/29/2013

image: David Woo/flickr

Google, worlds largest search engine where you can virtually search anything. It has literally thousands of complex search keyword syntax, use of which would make Google search a lot more easier and efficient.

Google search engine works based on keyword. The result of your search query depends on the keyword you enter. Many people have this misconception that they have to type the query in grammatical order which is not correct.

Here are some tricks which you will find useful when searching in Google and you can use them often:
  1. CALCULATE TIP: Now you can shift the burden of calculating tip of your Hotel bill to Google. Type "what is the tip  for $____", into the search bar or speak this in Google Now, Google search and Google will calculate it for you. Google also gave you the freedom to adjust Number of people, Tip percentage, Bill amount. 
  2. SET TIMER: Another good feature that Google added last August. You can set a timer by typing "Set timer for X hour/minute", and when the time expires sounds starts ringing. You can Stop, Reset, or Mute it the timer at any time by clicking the appropriate option.
  3. CALCULATOR: Enter any math calculation like cos 30, 10+2, 10!, 2^4 or any complex calculation like 10*cos 30, 1/20% into Google search bar then hit enter and Google will do the calculations for you.
  4. GET TIME: To see your local time simply type "time" and to see the time of any other city type "time city-name-goes-here" into the search bar.
  5. GET WEATHER: Get a weeks weather report of any city by typing "weather city-name" or just "weather" for your current city, in Google search bar. User in the U.S.A can also search by zip code. It gives a brief weather reports and forecasts.
  6. CURRENCY CONVERSION: With Google's instant currency converter it's now been easier to get conversation rate of a currency to another. Search in Google "Currency 1 to Currency 2" i.e "dollar to rupee" and it will provide you with the conversion rate.
  7. DICTIONARY: Just put "define:" followed by any word into the Google search bar. Then hit enter and Google will show you meaning, parts of speech and other details of the word.
  8. RESTRICT SEARCH TO A SPECIFIC DOMAIN: Sometimes you may want to search within a specific site at that time you can use this feature to force Google to only list contents from some specific site. To restrict a search to a specific site type search query followed by site:site-name-here like: iPhone site:techcrunch.com. This will fetch iPhone related contents from TechCrunch.
  9. SEARCH SPECIFIC FILE TYPE: You can list file of specific types such as PDFs, PPTs, XLS, DOCs on top of Google search result by adding modifier "filetype: 3-digit-file-format-goes-here" to your search query. E.g- search engine optimization  filetype:pdf.
  10. MOVIE SHOW TIME: To get showtimes for movies playing in your city type "Movies" or name of the film into Google search box.
  11. FILTER OUT KEYWORD FROM SEARCH RESULT: To exclude any word from your search output just put minus "-" sign followed by the word and it will no longer appear in your search result. E.g- If you want to see online shopping site except amazon type online shopping sites -amazon.
  12. EXACT KEYWORD SEARCH: To search in Google for an exact matching in exact order enclose your search keyword within quotation mark("___") i.e "search key word goes here".
  13. GOGGLES: Google's' goggles app let you search the web using image. To search a image open goggles app on your phone, snap a photo, and find search results about it. This app is currently available for android devices running version 2.2 and above, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 devices.
There are many more search tips, you can find some of them here.

Source: Inside Search

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