With Bing slowly but steadily risisng in popualrity. Google is facing more pressure than ever to rejuvenate the search experience it has to offer. Sure, they still hold a clearly dominant share of the market at about 64.6% (versus 19.3% for its closest rival, Yahoo), but then again Google has proven to know better than to just rest on its laurels.
Over the years, the Mountain View-based company has been enhancing its search engine not only to provide quality and relevant results, but also let users be more particular about their searches with dozens of special features and operators. Despite this, I am willing to bet that most people just use the vanilla search as is.
Fair enough. I mean Google is supposed to be easy to use, so why complicate it? Well, for starters, these functions are meant save you a lot of time and effort. I'm sure the more inquisitive of you know all about the basics, like quoting your searches to find exact matches, and then some -- but that's truly just the tip of the iceberg. Today we'll be highlighting some of our favorite Google search tricks.
Special Features:
Beyond the standard word search capability, Google can quickly display things like the current time or weather of a particular city; it can be used to track packages; as a calculator for basic and fairly advanced math operations; and can convert things like currency, weights and measures.
Time and weather:
To find the time in another corner of the globe simply enter "time" and then the name of a large city or country -- time Berlin for example. Likewise, weather humidity, temperature and forecast can be viewed by typing the word "weather" followed by the desired location.
Calculator and package tracking:
Use Google for math equations by entering them as a query -- 3*2 will work, but so will a more complex calculation like 94/36*(sqrt 34)^3. Most symbols and integers can be swapped with written words, too. Typing the tracking number for your UPS, FedEx or USPS package directly into the search box will get you quick links to easily track the status of your shipment.
Unit conversions:
Conversions are just as easy. Simply enter a number followed by something like USD to GBP, mm to inch, Fahrenheit to Celsius. Be it teaspoons, microseconds, bytes or kilometers, Google's conversion calculator is quite featured, and can be used for just about any unit that comes to mind.
Other tweaks:
While all of that is handy and easy to use, things get much more intricate. By using the proper strings of text, you can even use Google search in palce of P2P program to find songs, video clips, and other media. There are also plenty of minor hacks and tweaks. For instance, Omgili shows how to tinker with a Google search URL to get real-time results. This is particularly useful for finding news related to current events; here's the latest on IDF (in progress as of this writing) within a 30 minutes timeframe, by the way.
Query Refinements
Finally, below is a table of a few functions that we have found to be useful -- but they only scratch the surface, really. We would love to hear about the small search adjustments you make to refine or otherwise improve your Google results.
| Function | Purpose | Example |
| + | Includes specified words. | netbook +11.6 +ion |
| - | Excludes specified words. | gaming keyboard -logitech |
| * | The standard wildcard symbol. Used as a placeholder for unknown words. | traditional * food |
| ~ | Searches for words similar to the one it's paired with. | first computer build ~help |
| .. | Searches for a numeric range -- especially useful for dates or prices. | halo pc $0..$15 |
| define: | Can be used for various things, including words, acronyms, and phrases to offer specialized search results. | define:monkey see monkey do |
| filetype: | Filters out results by specified file type. | filetype:torrent ubuntu |
| related: | A great way to find sites that have similar content. | related:techspot.com |
| site: | Search for site-specific content. | Lynnfield site:techspot.com |
| Combining operators | You can use most of these search functions in a single query to further enhance your results | +microsoft +yahoo ~talks "Matthew DeCarlo" site:techspot.com |
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