Google has now become synonymous with the term search, and that’s the reason more often you’ll hear the term Google it than search it! Gradually Google (other search engines also followed) has become so smart that whatever you type in the search box you will get dozens of pages as search results. You can keep on moving from one link to another from search results and waste your valuable time or can use the following tips to precisely and quickly find whatever you were looking for!
Beyond doubt search engines algorithm are getting smarter but they are yet to exceed the intelligence level of a 5 year young kid! Most of the search tips described here are applicable to both Google and Bing and might work for other search engines as well.
1. Reverse Image Search
At times I am surprised to know that this nifty web tool is still unknown although it has been around for more than 3 years. As the name suggests it takes an image as the input and returns various URLs that has the same image that you provided as an input. There are various use cases for this for example; it can act as a plagiarism checker for images.
It’s simple and easy to use. You can upload an image or can share the URL of the image. Visit Google Support for details
2. Define Command
Type define:WOTY in search box and from the below image it is obvious that the output of this command is the definition of the word/phrase that you have written after the colon.
3. Synonym Search
The tilde symbol ( ~ ) is useful once you want to explicitly find synonyms for your search terms.
What happens when you type node.js ~programmer in the search box? It shows you not only results for node.js programmer but also for node.js developer. Please note, most of the search engines implicitly understand synonyms so even if you don’t use tilde you might see the results for synonyms as well.
4. Double Quotes
Type “Dynamic Search Without Using Dynamic SQL” in the search bar. It will lead to exact search for the phrase i.e. similar words/phrases are excluded from the search result. Try it with double quotes and without double quotes to understand the difference.
5. Logical Operators [OR, AND, NOT]
You can easily refine your search using logical operators OR, AND, NOT. For example, search javascript exercises OR tutorials. The resulting search results would contain either of the two words before and after the OR operator.
There can be a scenario where you want to search about SQL and have entered the word SQL in search box. The top 10 results also contains a few links for Microsoft SQL Server. What if you are interested only about SQL and not at all interested about SQL Server? Simply refine your search by typing sql –server. The minus ( – ) sign acts as a NOT operator.
Note:
- Don’t worry about the AND operator as it is the default operator for any search phrase.
- The name of the operator [OR in the above example] must be in Uppercase.
6. Calculator
You can use the Google search bar as a calculator. Type 100+200 to see the results.
7. Site Command
You can search a word or phrase in a specific website. See the below image for details.
8. ZIP code
Type 10001 in the search box (Google). It shows you the weather forecast of New York! Smart.
9. Filetype command
Copy paste the following search term:
introduction to cloud computing filetype:pdf
What does it show? Yes, it shows various URLs that contain a PDF file on the introduction to cloud computing.
Hope these search tips help you to save your time and may have motivated you to look for more search tips. Feel free to share your secret search tips in the comment box.
Basant Singh
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