Get the Most Out of Your Google Search Results

With Bing slowly but steadily ascension in popularity Google is facing more pressure than e'er to rejuvenate the search experience it has to offering. Certain, they still hold a clearly dominant share of the market at near 64.6% (versus xix.3% for its closest rival, Yahoo), but then again Google has proven to know better than to just rest on its honour.

Over the years, the Mountain View-based company has been enhancing its search engine not simply to provide quality and relevant results, merely too let users be more particular well-nigh their searches with dozens of special features and operators. Despite this, I am willing to bet that most people just apply the vanilla search as is.

Fair plenty. I mean Google is supposed to exist like shooting fish in a barrel to use, so why complicate it? Well, for starters, these functions are meant save you lot a lot of fourth dimension and try. I'thou sure the more inquisitive of y'all know all about the basics, like quoting your searches to find exact matches, and and so 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 adequacy, Google can speedily brandish things similar the current fourth dimension or weather of a item 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 discover the fourth dimension in some other corner of the world just enter "time" and then the proper name of a big urban center or country -- time Berlin for instance. Likewise, weather humidity, temperature and forecast can be viewed by typing the word "weather" followed past the desired location.

Calculator and package tracking
Use Google for math equations past entering them as a query -- iii*two will work, just so will a more than complex calculation like 94/36*(sqrt 34)^three. Most symbols and integers tin can be swapped with written words, likewise. Typing the tracking number for your UPS, FedEx or USPS package direct into the search box will become y'all quick links to easily rails the status of your shipment.

Unit conversions
Conversions are simply as easy. Simply enter a number followed by something similar USD to GBP, mm to inch, Fahrenheit to Celsius. Exist it teaspoons, microseconds, bytes or kilometers, Google'south conversion figurer is quite featured, and tin be used for just about whatsoever unit of measurement that comes to mind.

Other tweaks
While all of that is handy and easy to apply, things get much more than intricate. By using the proper strings of text, yous tin fifty-fifty utilise Google search in place of a P2P programme to find songs, video clips, and other media. At that place are also plenty of minor hacks and tweaks. For instance, Omgili shows how to tinker with a Google search URL to become real-fourth dimension results. This is particularly useful for finding news related to current events; here's the latest on IDF (in progress as of this writing) inside a 30 infinitesimal timeframe, past the fashion.

Query Refinements

Finally, below is a table of a few functions that nosotros have institute to be useful -- but they just scratch the surface, really. We would honey to hear about the small search adjustments you make to refine or otherwise improve your Google results in the comments.

Function	Purpose	Case
+	Includes specified words.	netbook +eleven.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 1 it's paired with.	first computer build ~assistance
..	Searches for a numeric range -- specially 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 encounter monkey practice
filetype:	Filters out results by specified file blazon.	filetype:torrent ubuntu
related:	A corking fashion to find sites that have like 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

Did you know?

Google is cooking upwardly an innovative personal advice and collaboration tool dubbed Google Wave. In short, information technology is a web-based service, computing platform and protocol designed to unite email, IM, wiki, and social networking. Based on recent information posted on its weblog, information technology appears like Google Wave may be entering the public beta phase next calendar week.