Google Search Tricks for Better Search Experience

 

Basic Google Search Tricks for Better Search Experience 

Use quotes to search for an exact phrase

This one’s a well-known, easy trick: searching a phrase in quotes will yield only pages with the same words in the same order as what’s in the quotes. It’s one of the common vital search tips, useful if you’re trying to find results containing a specific phrase.

Use an asterisk within quotes to define unknown or variable words

Here’s a lesser-known trick: searching a term in quotes with an asterisk replacing a word will search all variations of that phrase. It’s helpful if you’re trying to decide a song from its lyrics, but you couldn’t make out the entire term (e.g., imagine all the living for today), or if you’re trying to find all forms of an expression (e.g. is thicker than water).

Use the minus sign to exclude results containing specific words

You’ll want to exclude results with specific words if you’re trying to search for a term that’s generating many results that aren’t of interest to you. Conclude out what terms you’re not interested in (e.g., jaguar -car) and re-run the search.

Search websites for keywords

Think of the “site:” function as a Google search that searches only a particular website. If you want to see every time ABC.com mentioned Google, use the search “Google site:ABC.com.”

Search news archives going back to the mid-1880s

Google News has an option to search over 100 years’ worth of archived news from newspapers around the world.

Compare foods using “vs”

Can’t decide between a burger and pizza for dinner? Type in rice vs. quinoa, for instance, and you’ll take side-by-side comparisons of the nutritional facts.

Filter search results for recipes

If you search your favorite food and then click “Search Tools” right under the search bar, you’ll be able to filter recipes based on ingredients, cook time, and calories. It’s the perfect tool if you have specific dietary restrictions.

Use DEFINE: to learn the definition of words—slang included

Streamline the dictionary method by using, for example, DEFINE: mortgage. For words that look in the dictionary, you’ll be able to see etymology and a graph of its use over time alongside the definition. Google will even sift the web to explain slang words or acronyms. Try out “DEFINE: bae” or “DEFINE: SMH.”

Tilt your screen by searching “tilt”

This is one of the fun extensions built-in by Google engineers. Try it out yourself (search without quotes).

Play Atari Breakout by exploring it on Google Images

The legendary brick breaker game is available for easy access on Google. Just search Atari Breakout (without quotes) on Google Images and use.

Search images using images

You have ever come across a photo that looks strangely familiar? Or if you want to know where it came from? If you save the image and then search it on Google Images (with the camera button), you’ll be able to see similar images on the web.

Track your packages

Our last trick is to utilize Google search to find out where your packages are. You can access any UPS, USPS, or FedEx tracking number directly into the Google search bar, and it’ll show you the tracking information about your package.

This is much more comfortable than going to the specific sites, waiting for them to load, then searching for your packages there.

No examples are needed for this one. Just type your tracking number in and understand where your package is.

Could you keep it simple?

Now we’re getting into the general tips. Google search identifies how to search for a lot of things. What this means is you don’t need to be too precise. If you require a pizza place nearby, use this to search.

• Pizza places nearby

Google search will grab your location and deliver different results about pizza places near you.

Use a hyphen to exclude words

Sometimes you may discover yourself searching for a word with an ambiguous meaning. An example is Mustang. When you Google search for Mustang, you may get outcomes for both the car made by Ford or the horse. If you want to cut one out, use the hyphen to tell the engine to disregard content with one of the other. See the example below.

• Mustang -cars

This tells the search engine to search for mustangs and remove any results with the word “car” in them. It can be wildly helpful when getting information about something without getting information about something else.