The Power of Google Searching

The Google Search engine is arguably the most powerful search engine.  But like any tool its power resides in knowing how to use the tool correctly.  Very few people know how to use these tools to refine their searches and get more accurate information.  Often this is referred to as data-mining.

If you want to dramatically improve your ability to search for the information you seek, use the following “arguments” when you search:

Basic Usage:

  • Use quotation marks ” “ to locate an entire string.
    eg. “Church Of Googlism” will only return results with that exact string.
  • Mark essential words with a +
    If a search term must contain certain words or phrases, mark it with a + symbol. eg: +”bill gates” conference will return all results containing “bill gates” but not necessarily those pertaining to a conference.
  • Negate unwanted words with a –
    You may wish to search for the term bass, pertaining to the fish and be returned a list of music links as well. To narrow down your search a bit more, try: bass -music. This will return all results with “bass” and NOT “music”.

General Tips:

  • site:www.technicalknow-how.com
    This will search only pages which reside on this domain.
  • related:www.technicalknow-how.com
    This will display all pages which Google finds to be related to your URL
  • link:www.technicalknow-how.com
    This will display a list of all pages which Google has found to be linking to your site. Useful to see how popular your site is
  • spell:word
    Runs a spell check on your word
  • define:word
    Returns the definition of the word
  • stocks: [symbol, symbol, etc]
    Returns stock information . eg. stock: goog
  • maps:
    A shortcut to Google Maps
  • phone: name_here
    Attempts to lookup the phone number for a given name
  • cache:
    If you include other words in the query, Google will highlight those words within the cached document. For instance, cache:www.technicalknow-how.com web will show the cached content with the word “web” highlighted.
  • info:
    The query [info:] will present some information that Google has about that web page. For instance, info:www.technicalknow-how.com will show information about the Technical Know-How homepage. Note there can be no space between the “info:” and the web page url.
  • weather:
    Used to find the weather in a particular city. eg. weather: new york

Advanced Tips:

  • filetype:
    Does a search for a specific file type, or, if you put a minus sign (-) in front of it, it won’t list any results with that filetype. Try it with .mp3, .mpg or .avi if you like.
  • daterange:
    Is supported in Julian date format only. 2452384 is an example of a Julian date.
  • allinurl:
    If you start a query with [allinurl:], Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the url. For instance, [allinurl: google search] will return only documents that have both “google” and “search” in the url.
  • inurl:
    If you include [inurl:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the url. For instance, [inurl:google search] will return documents that mention the word “google” in their url, and mention the word “search” anywhere in the document (url or no). Note there can be no space between the “inurl:” and the following word.
  • allintitle:
    If you start a query with [allintitle:], Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the title. For instance, [allintitle: google search] will return only documents that have both “google” and “search” in the title.
  • intitle:
    If you include [intitle:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the title. For instance, [intitle:google search] will return documents that mention the word “google” in their title, and mention the word “search” anywhere in the document (title or no). Note there can be no space between the “intitle:” and the following word.
  • allinlinks:
    Searches only within links, not text or title.
  • allintext:
    Searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title.
  • bphonebook:
    If you start your query with bphonebook:, Google shows U.S. business white page listings for the query terms you specify. For example, [ bphonebook: google mountain view ] will show the phonebook listing for Google in Mountain View.
  • phonebook:
    If you start your query with phonebook:, Google shows all U.S. white page listings for the query terms you specify. For example, [ phonebook: Krispy Kreme Mountain View ] will show the phonebook listing of Krispy Kreme donut shops in Mountain View.
  • rphonebook:
    If you start your query with rphonebook:, Google shows U.S. residential white page listings for the query terms you specify. For example, [ rphonebook: John Doe New York ] will show the phonebook listings for John Doe in New York (city or state). Abbreviations like [ rphonebook: John Doe NY ] generally also work.

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